Connecting Lives and Celebrating Singing: Past, Present, and Future: Masterworks Chorale
From humble beginnings in the early 1970s in a living room in a house in the Old West End, Masterworks Chorale, originally known as the Benjamin Locke Chorale, began a fifty-year journey in our mission to connect lives to choral music.
During our 2021-22 season and extending through the calendar year of 2023, Masterworks Chorale will be celebrated our 50th Anniversary. The theme for this anniversary season is “Connecting lives and celebrating singing: Past, present, and future.” We had an ambitious schedule of performances and community outreach programming that truly honored our history, as well as engaged new communities and future generations of music lovers.
50-year tradition of excellence
Over our 50-year tradition of excellence in choral music, tens of thousands of people in the Toledo area have enjoyed performances by Masterworks Chorale featuring diverse musical selections from the Renaissance through the 21st century - and through that we build community and enrich lives.
Among the many highlights over the years, we have:
- Performed more than 1,000 works
- Sung more than 30 songs commissioned for the Chorale
- 350 singers who have graced us with their voices over the years
- Six of our current members have been with the Chorale for more than 40 years
- Mentored 60 interns
- Produce 1 LP and 7 CDs
- Performed 20 out-of-town concerts
- Conducted 12 educational choral festivals with clinicians
Lasting community connections
We have established lasting community connections with the Toledo Zoo & Aquarium, the Toledo Symphony, Toledo Mud Hens, Toledo School for the Arts, Ballet Theatre of Toledo, and Toledo Ballet, just to name a few. Our numerous outreach efforts over the years include annual performances at the Youth Treatment Center, among others. Our outreach group has sung at countless senior centers and other organizations. Through our education program, we have had more than 30 high school students participate in our intern program. And we are looking to continue to build on and extend our community connections in the future.
An expanding community mission
The mission of Masterworks Chorale has evolved dramatically over the years. In its early forms, the mission was more internally focused, with an emphasis to perform music, to perfect music skills, educate performers and listeners in the finery of choral artistry. It evolved in the mid-1980s to continue a policy to perform musical selections seldom heard elsewhere in the Toledo area.
In 1988, after a long-range planning process, the mission became more formalized to read: Masterworks is an ensemble of 35-50 mixed voices whose purpose is to perform a wide variety of choral literature in a professional manner. The Chorale is committed to provide an enriching and fulfilling musical experience for its members and audience.
Over the next thirty years, the mission statement remained largely the same, with some refinements.
After another strategic planning session in 2018, the mission of the Chorale took a dramatic turn. Based on input from members of the Chorale, the mission statement became much simpler and much broader in its scope, to say:
Connecting lives through choral music.
This simple statement says it all. Through choral music, we aim to connect all communities, including our community of singers and all the diverse neighborhoods and communities for whom we perform. Because as we make these connections, we all begin to breathe together, in harmony. Breathing as one, lifting all.