The Cleveland Orchestra has announced that renowned choral director Robert Porco will step down from his position as the Orchestra's Director of Choruses with the conclusion of the 2017-18 season. At that time, he will be the longest-serving Director of Choruses and Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in the ensemble's history, he began his tenure with the 1998-99 season.
"Bob Porco has been a great musical partner of The Cleveland Orchestra," says Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra's Music Director since 2002. "At home in Cleveland, and on tour, he has been a driving force in bringing our choral works to life. He has taken on challenging repertoire from Mozart to Mahler, from Beethoven to Stravinsky, and for our annual opera productions across multiple languages and styles - and all with a group of dedicated volunteers. He has inspired thousands of singers to perform at their best."
"The entire Cleveland Orchestra community stands grateful for Bob Porco's tireless commitment to The Cleveland Orchestra's tradition of excellence, onstage and off," said André Gremillet, the Orchestra's Executive Director. "Bob's leadership has been exemplary and inspirational, as have his absolute dedication and advocacy for each piece of music he and the Chorus worked on during their long and successful partnership.
Robert Porco was appointed to the position of Director of Choruses in 1998 by Christoph von Dohnányi, The Cleveland Orchestra's music director from 1984 to 2002. Over the course of his time with the Orchestra, Porco has continued to refine and shape the choral sound of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and its other choruses, preparing them for numerous performances for each Severance Hall season, the summertime Blossom Music Festival, and on tour with The Cleveland Orchestra nationally and internationally. His predecessors in the role of Director of Choruses include
Robert Shaw (1956-67), whose work first elevated the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus to international fame through recordings and in performance.
In addition to preparing choral forces for performance under many guest conductors and for Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, Porco has personally led the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in concert with The Cleveland Orchestra ? in performances at both Severance Hall and at Blossom, including Verdi's Requiem, Handel's Messiah,
Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony, and Orff's Carmina Burana, in addition to evenings of Broadway or American favorites at the Blossom Music Festival. For many seasons, he also led The Cleveland Orchestra's popular Christmas Concerts each December, acting as both emcee and conductor for these beloved holiday programs.
An Ohio native, Porco also serves as the Director of Choruses for the Cincinnati May Festival, a position he has held for the past twenty-seven years, and extending through the Festival's 2018 season. In 2011, Mr. Porco was honored by Chorus America with its annual Michael Korn Founders Award for a lifetime of significant contributions to the professional choral art.
Highlights of Mr. Porco's Cleveland tenure have included preparing the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus for a wide variety of performances and repertoire, including performances of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 conducted by Franz Welser-Möst in January 2007, released as a Deutsche Grammophon recording. He has prepared the Chorus for touring appearances with the Orchestra, including performances at the
Edinburgh International Festival, Lucerne Festival, London Proms,
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, as well as performances in Paris, Frankfurt, and Luxembourg. In twenty seasons as Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, he will have been involved in preparing the Chorus for over 150 different concert programs, presented on more than 600 performance dates.
Porco's activities and achievements across four decades of work have included preparing choruses for such prominent conductors as
Pierre Boulez,
James Conlon,
Andrew Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi,
James Levine, Zubin Mehta, André Previn, Kurt Sanderling,
Robert Shaw, and
Leonard Slatkin, among others. As a guest conductor, Mr. Porco has led performances across North America, in Europe, and in Asia, with appearances from Edinburgh to Lucerne, Reykjavik to Taipei, and from Chicago's Grant Park Festival to the Cincinnati May Festival.
Robert Porco served as chairman of the choral department at Indiana University, 1980-98, and in recent years taught doctoral-level conducting at the school. Highlights of his work at Indiana University included a special performance by 250 students of
Leonard Bernstein's Mass as part of the Tanglewood Music Festival's celebration of the composer's 70th birthday. He was artistic director and conductor of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, 1989-98.
As teacher and mentor, Mr. Porco has guided and influenced the development of hundreds of musicians, many of whom are now active as professional conductors, singers, or teachers. As a sought-after guest instructor and coach, his teaching work has included programs at Harvard University, Westminster Choir College, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music.
Orchestra officials stated that the process of selecting Porco's replacement as Director of Choruses is underway and will proceed in the coming months.
About the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Choruses
The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus is one of the few professionally trained, all-volunteer choruses sponsored by a major American orchestra. In addition to performing with The Cleveland Orchestra in concerts at Severance Hall each season, the Chorus has appeared with the Orchestra on tour in Boston, Brussels, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, London, Lucerne, Luxembourg, Miami, Paris, and New York, as well as on television and in numerous recordings. The Chorus has also toured on its own, either a cappella or with other ensembles, to the Casals Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico; the Chautauqua Institution in New York; and to venues in England, Wales, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Germany.
Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Blossom Festival Chorus members hail from nearly 50 northeast Ohio communities. Together, the groups' 150 members volunteer more than 50,000 hours annually, through rehearsals and performances. They also raise money for their tours through a variety of projects and events.
Today's Cleveland Orchestra Chorus was first formed in 1952 at the request of Music Director George Szell. The Chorus celebrated its 60th anniversary during the 2012-13 season. During The Cleveland Orchestra's first several decades, a number of college and guest choruses appeared in performances, along with several short-lived attempts at forming a permanent chorus for the Orchestra's annual seasons. Soon after Severance Hall opened in 1931, the Cleveland Philharmonic Chorus was created and flourished for nearly a decade before going out of existence during World War II. It provided choral forces for the many staged operas presented under Music Director Artur Rodzi?ski's direction at Severance Hall.
The Orchestra's fourth music director, George Szell (1946-70), initiated the creation of a permanent chorus to be affiliated with the Orchestra and made up of local singers admitted by audition. The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus began performing in 1952, under the joint direction of Russell L. Gee and Robert M. Stofer, and quickly proved its artistic worth. In 1956, Szell invited the young and nationally prominent choral conductor
Robert Shaw to join the Orchestra's conducting staff as associate conductor and chorus conductor, further solidifying and expanding the Chorus's national reputation for quality. The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus has maintained its position as a leading American orchestra chorus under the subsequent leadership of choral directors Clayton H. Krehbiel (1967-69),
Margaret Hillis (1969-71),
Robert Page (1971-89), Gareth Morrell (1989-98), and
Robert Porco (1998-2018).
In addition to the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, which sings during each year's season of concerts at Severance Hall and on tour and recordings, several additional choral groups have been created under the auspices of The Cleveland Orchestra: Cleveland Orchestra Children's Chorus (founded in 1967), Blossom Festival Chorus (created in 1968 for performances at the Orchestra's summer home), Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus (founded in 1991 for high school students), and the annu
Al Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Community Chorus (first assembled in 1989 under the name Cleveland Community Gospel Chorus and formally rechristened with the reopening of Severance Hall in 2000.)
Photo credit: Roger Mastroianni
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