The mission of the Blair Concert Chorale is to foster a growing appreciation and awareness of quality choral music through performing excellence and educational activities for the population of south-central Pennsylvania.
Our Conductor
The Blair Concert Chorale welcomed Christopher Bartley as Artistic Director in June 2020. Even in the midst of a pandemic, Chris has been able to work with the Chorale in a creative and safe manner to make beautiful music together. Although the Blair Concert Chorale has been unable to perform its usual season of three concerts, under Chris’s direction, the group has been able to sing together, producing holiday carols for online enjoyment.
It is the vision and commitment of the singers and especially of the artistic director that the Blair Concert Chorale come through this time of trial intact and singing beautifully. Chris Bartley looks forward to the day when the Blair Concert Chorale can resume producing concerts for the enjoyment of the music lovers of our community.
Currently, Chris Bartley is music director and instructor of music at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. He conducts the Pitt-Greensburg Chorale and Chamber Singers. He also serves as music director for university productions. He holds degrees in sociology from Wesleyan University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His doctoral studies in choral conducting and historical musicology at the University of Arizona have focused on the music of Handel’s Messiah and its relationship to the cultural context of its composition.
At the university, he teaches both Western classical and contemporary popular music. He has sung professionally as a baritone/bass with the Westmoreland Symphony Chorus, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and currently with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.
Our History
The Blair Concert Chorale was formed in 1987 by combining the Keystone Chorale and the Altoona Choral Society, which in turn traces its roots back to 1933. In 1995 a tuition-based children’s choir was added to expose, educate, and develop youth between the ages of 7 and 17 to classical music.
The adult chorale today is made up of over 40 singers (all volunteers) from Blair, Bedford, and Cambria counties. The children’s choir consists of up to 30 young people from the greater Altoona area.
The adult season consists of three concerts: a fall concert, a holiday concert in December with the children’s choir, and a concert in the spring. They perform in venues such as the Mishler Theatre and area churches. In addition to the concerts, they participate in local arts events, perform with other groups, and perform at Garvey Manor.
The chorale rehearses weekly from September through May.
We are a 501(C)3 not-for-profit Pennsylvania Corporation with a Board of Directors made up of community leaders and classical music lovers plus two non-voting choral representatives.
Auditions
The audition for the Blair Concert Chorale is a short and painless process. Singers will be asked to sing some scales to check for vocal range, sing a small piece (My County Tis of Thee or one the singer has brought), and singers will be asked to match pitches that the director will play at the keyboard. Provided the singer can do all of the above, the director will then ask the singer to sight-read a few measures of music (reading music is NOT a prerequisite to acceptance into the chorale).