Mission Statement

The Master Chorale is committed to advancing the art of choral music by performing great works of the past, commissioning and performing new literature and sharing the joy and power of choral music with new and existing audiences and singers.

Adopted by The Master Chorale’s
Board of Trustees – March, 2006

Vision, Scope and Core Values
Board and Staff

About the Chorale

The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, under direction of Music and Artistic Director, Richard Zielinski, is a highly select 170-voice all volunteer chorus embracing a broad representation of singers from the entire Tampa Bay area.  From its very inception in 1979, its performances have been consistently and critically recognized for excellence. 

Designated in 1989 as the “Principal Chorus of The Florida Orchestra”, the Master Chorale is featured annually on the Orchestra’s Masterworks Season. In 1999 the Master Chorale was appointed as “Artist in Residence” at the College of Visual and Performing Arts School of Music at the University of South Florida. 

Over the years, the Master Chorale has performed and premiered many symphonic choral works under the direction of Jahja Ling, Robert Shaw, John Nelson, Julius Rudel, Founding Music Director Emeritus Robert Summer, and Jo-Michael Schiebe. The Master Chorale has made four recordings, including its newest holiday recording with the world-renowned Empire Brass entitled, “Christmas with the Master Chorale and Empire Brass”.  The Master Chorale made its first appearances abroad during the 1996 season in critically acclaimed performances at London’s Westminster Cathedral and King’s College Chapel in Cambridge with the Bach Choir of London under the batons of Sir David Willcocks and Robert Summer.  In the summer of 2001, the Master Chorale was invited to perform the Berlioz Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra and Bach Choir of London, under the direction of Sir Colin Davis, in London’s cherished music festival.

About 40 members of the Chorale traveled to Poland during the summer of 2005 presenting concerts in Warsaw, Krakow, and Wroclaw as well as collaborating with the Szczecin Technical Academic Choir and Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra.

In recent years The Chorale has regularly commissioned some of the most important contemporary composers for works for The Master Chorale including Eric Whitacre (Lux Aurumque), Paul Basler (Missa Kenya), Eleanor Daley (Listen to the Sunrise), Libby Larsen (Whitman’s America), Stephan Paulus (Sing Unto God), and Alice Parker (The Rock and the River).