Lancaster Chorale

LancasterChorale was organized in 1985 as a volunteer choir to serve the growing desire of the community to support high quality choral performances in the city of Lancaster, Ohio, the charming and historic county seat of Fairfield County located just 30 miles southeast of Columbus. In the spring of 1986 Robert Trocchia, the much-lauded Fairfield Union High School music educator with an intense passion for excellence in choral music, was hired as the conductor of the ensemble, and under his expert direction LancasterChorale quickly grew in skill and reputation and was recognized as an organization that served all of central Ohio with engaging performances of choral standards.

Mr. Trocchia’s dedicated leadership and fine taste in programming, including new works commissioned yearly by the organization, led LancasterChorale to begin receiving support from the Don Wendel Family Fund of the Fairfield County Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, the Presser Foundation, and SBC Ameritech. In 1989 The Lancaster Chorale realized the aspirations of its Artistic Director and Board of Directors to become a professional ensemble with its ‘pure sound’, excellent tuning, and choral blend attracting attention from national leaders in choral music.

Recorded performances, including the 2007 performance of Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus, have been featured on WOSU-FM ‘Music in Mid-Ohio’ with Christopher Purdy in Columbus. LancasterChorale performances of Herbert Howell’s Requiem, Barber’s Agnus Dei, and Martin’s Mass for Double Choir have been featured on ‘The First Art’, the nationally syndicated series broadcast over National Public Radio that showcases excellence in American choral music.

LancasterChorale entered its tenth season as Choral Ensemble-in-Residence at Columbus’ historic St. Joseph Cathedral. Performances in subsequent seasons have included those with ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, notably the fully-staged version of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass under the baton of Timothy Russell, and Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor, with David Danzmayr conducting. After twenty-eight years of dedicated and visionary leadership, Robert Trocchia retired as Artistic Director and has been named Director Emeritus of LancasterChorale.

At the conclusion of a one-year search process, Stephen Caracciolo, a passionate conductor and composer whose publications have been widely performed, recorded, and broadcast nationally, was invited in June of 2015 to accept the post of Artistic Director. At Dr. Caracciolo’s inaugural performance as Artistic Director, the ensemble’s warm tone, splendid balance and blend, and remarkable dynamic range was on call once again for the world premiere of Patrick Hawes’ Psalm 91, a new commission dedicated to Director Emeritus Robert Trocchia. Programming in the 2015-2016 season included an introduction of challenging works from the choral canon into the ensemble’s expanding repertoire, including Poulenc’s Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël and Chansons françaises. LancasterChorale was invited to perform at the Ohio Choral Director’s Association Summer Conference as well as a program of opera choruses with the Lancaster Festival Orchestra under the baton of Gary Sheldon.