The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, under direction of Music and Artistic Director Dr. James K. Bass, is an auditioned, highly select 140-voice volunteer chorus embracing a broad representation of singers from the entire Tampa Bay area.  Founded in 1979 by Dr. Robert Summer, The Master Chorale was later incorporated in 1988 as a 501(c)(3). Designated in 1989 as the Principal Chorus of The Florida Orchestra, The Master Chorale is featured annually on The Florida Orchestra’s Masterworks season. In 1999, The Master Chorale was appointed as Artist in Residence at the College of the Arts School of Music at the University of South Florida. The organization serves Tampa Bay and west central Florida with a mission to advance 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.

Since its inception in 1979, The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay has produced at least one major choral-orchestral work each year. These performances have featured many rare and challenging masterworks including J.S. Bach's Passion According to St. Matthew, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Fanshawe’s African Sanctus, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, and Mahler's symphonies number 2, 3 and 8. The Mahler 8th was performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and others under the direction of Robert Shaw and resulted in an internationally distributed recording on the Telarc label. 

In recent years The Chorale has regularly commissioned some of the most important contemporary composers to write 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), Alice Parker (The Rock and the River), and René Clausen (Jubilate Deo).

Other appointed conductors during the history of The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay include Daniel Moe, Duncan Couch, David Brunner, Joseph Holt, Jo-Michael Scheibe, and Richard Zielinski. The Master Chorale has performed and premiered many major symphonic choral works under the direction of such outstanding conductors as Jahja Ling, Robert Shaw, John Nelson, Julius Rudel, Sir Colin Davis, and Sir David Willcocks.