Meet the Chapman University Choir

One of the most outstanding university vocal ensembles in the United States, the Chapman University Choir, under the direction of Dr. Stephen Coker, is scheduled to tour Central Europe with Incantato Tours from May 25 to June 7, 2011. 

The Chapman University Choir is a select group of ninety singers chosen from all departments of the university.  The choir has concertized and recorded extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States, and are featured in the motion picture and soundtrack of Sister Act II.  Choirs from Chapman University have been honored with invitations to perform at numerous national and western-regional conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, most recently at the national convention in Miami, Florida in March 2007. The University Choir, joined by 300 singers from around the United States and Australia, sang a thrilling performance of the Berlioz Requiem at the Sydney Opera House. Their performance sold-out all 2,700 seats and earned seven standing ovations. In 2007, the University Choir performed the west coast premier of Howard Shore’s epic The Lord of the Rings Symphony with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to the delight of an audience of over 15,000 people. Recent international tours include Italy in the summer of 2008, where the choir sang for His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI during a papal audience for 5,000 attendees.

Chapman University is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in California, and has a rich tradition in the arts with many of its graduates performing with major orchestras and opera houses throughout the United States and Europe.  In recent years, one could hear Chapman graduates in such prestigious locations as the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the Metropolitan Opera; and in starring roles in Broadway productions of Showboat and Damn Yankees.  The Conservatory of Music is internationally recognized and offers students a conservatory-level experience within the environment of a liberal arts university.  Faculty members are nationally and internationally recognized performers, composers, and educators.  

Photo courtesy of the Chapman University website.