The Boston Cecilia: Past - Present - Future

Ever since its founding in 1876, The Boston Cecilia has enjoyed a history remarkable for its many fine conductors. The adventurous B.J. Lang in his 33 years of leadership established a pattern of introducing new works to Boston audiences alongside standard repertoire. Many of those unknown pieces joined the canon—the Bach Mass in B Minor, Brahms Requiem, and Handel's Acis and Galatea, to name a few. Among his novel ideas, Lang had the boldness to program Bach for a Victorian audience whose taste, ironically, found “antique” music decidedly old-fashioned.

Cecilia has long held a central place in the performing arts in this city. Antonín Dvořák led the chorus in Boston’s first performance of his Requiem in 1892. It premiered Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and later sang it under Max Fiedler at the dedication of Symphony Hall in 1900. Igor Stravinsky, commissioned by his countryman Serge Koussevitsky, composed his Symphony of Psalms for the Boston Symphony when Cecilia in 1930 sang the choral part in the American premiere, six days after its world debut in Switzerland. During those years music director Arthur Fiedler brought Cecilia through the Depression and World War II as the official chorus of the BSO. Under his and Koussevitzky’s firm control, this was a period of prominence if not independence.

After the war, Cecilia meandered until 1968, when Donald Teeters became music director. This young, inexperienced conductor set an ambitious path over the next 44 years, surpassing Lang’s tenure. With high musical standards, Teeters was the first in Boston to perform Bach and Handel with period instruments, including all but two Handel oratorios. At the same time, he led the American premiere of Britten’s Phaedra and many performances of other Britten and contemporary works, some with the ink still wet. Through the changing times, shifting tastes, and turns of technology, Cecilia again became a chorus of moderate size, able to shine in music of diverse periods and styles. In this third period of prosperity, to quote longtime member Stephen Jay Gould’s history, The Cecilia: The First Hundred Years (1975), the chorus returned to “Lang’s goals of independence and innovation.”

Nicholas White, Music Director from 2013-2017, brilliantly continued that tradition, exploring music of the 20th and 21st centuries as well as conducting acclaimed performances of Baroque music performed on period instruments, among them Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and Handel's Dixit Dominus.

Between 2017-2020, Music Director George Case continued guiding the group in its ongoing endeavor to deliver concerts characterized by informed and expressive performances of the great works of choral repertoire old and new.

Cecilia enters its 145th season (2020-2021) under the leadership of its new Music Director, Michael Barrett.