Westminster Choir

About Westminster Choir

Donald Nally, conductor

"The Gold standard..." - American Record Guide

Setting the standard for choral excellence since 1920, the Westminster Choir is composed of students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University.

The ensemble's 2024-2025 season includes performances with the International Contemporary Ensemble strings in works of David Lang and Caroline Shaw; with the Gondwana Chorale and the New York City Children's Chorus in New York; of Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem in Philadelphia and Bethlehem, PA; and of Brahms' Schicksalslied with the Princeton Symphony.

Recent seasons included concert performances in Washington, DC, New York, and Connecticut, including the premiere of the James Whitbourn Requiem at Carnegie Hall; a concert tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania including a performance at the Dayton Westminster Presbyterian Church, birthplace of the choir; performances of the Mozart Requiem with the Pittsburgh Symphony; the release of the album A Serenity of Soul on the GIA Choral Works label; and Christmas at Westminster: An Evening of Readings and Carols, seen by public television audiences nationwide in 2023 and 2024. Other recent seasons have included concert tours in Beijing, China and Spain, as well as participation in the World Symposium on Choral Music in Barcelona.

Praised by The New York Times for its “full-bodied, incisive singing,” the Westminster Choir forms the core of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, which has performed and recorded with nearly all of the leading conductors of our time, including Masur, Muti, Walter, Toscanni, Bernstein, Abbado, Mehta, Sawallisch, Shaw, Nézet-Séguin, and the orchestras of Philadelphia, New York, Vienna, Leipzig, Berlin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Cleveland.

The Westminster Choir has performed and recorded choral masterworks for more than a century, led by an illustrious list of conductors, most recently Joseph Flummerfelt, Joe Miller, and James Jordan. Of its recording of the Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir, American Record Guide wrote, “This is gorgeous singing…with perfect blend, intonation, diction, ensemble and musicality.” Noël, a collection of French Christmas music and sacred works, featuring Westminster alumna Jennifer Larmore, mezzo-soprano, and organist Ken Cowan, was the centerpiece of the PRI Radio broadcast Noël – A Christmas from Paris, hosted by Bill McGlaughlin. The choir’s recording Flower of Beauty received four stars from Choir & Organ magazine and earned critical praise from American Record Guide, which described the Westminster Choir as “the gold standard for academic choirs in America."