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As of January 12, 2015, Ann Meier Baker is the new director of music and opera at the National Endowment for the Arts. In that position, she will lead NEA grantmaking in music and opera grants as well as the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships, and represent the agency to the field.

Thirteen New England choruses receive grants totaling $15,500 and a Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to Dr. Gerald R.

Women in Harmony (WIH), Portland’s 60-member women’s chorus, will participate this summer in the Sister Singers National Women’s Choral Festival, which is held only once every four years. The festival, which draws more than 20 choruses and some 500 singers, will be held at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, from July 23 through 27.  About 30 chorus members will attend the festival. WIH Director Catherine Beller-McKenna is exuberant.

The Choral Arts New England chorus directory currently lists 383 active choral organizations in the six New England states. Such an active choral community makes for a lot of great music! Here, I have tried to provide an overview of what is being performed this season. By necessity such a listing is limited and subjective, but hopefully it will be useful.

Emily Isaacson, a native of Brunswick, Maine, is the new Music Director of the Oratorio Chorale. Isaacson succeeds Peter Frewen, who retired after 27 years with the chorale. The Chorale was started in 1974. Isaacson brings a diverse background to the Oratorio Chorale podium, including orchestral and choral conducting, chamber and large ensembles in early to contemporary music.

Summer is a perfect time for getting out of old routines and devoting time to music. New England holds some special retreats that offer programs where choral singers can get away for a week or more to focus and learn; elsewhere, singers take advantage of summer freedom to rehearse and perform a special choral work. Many choruses open their doors to the public to host “summer sings,” where participants sing a masterwork in a single session under expert direction, and often with professional soloists— a perfect way to participate in great music with a minimum commitment.

Sir Colin Rex Davis died last month (April 14, 2013) at the age of eighty-five after an illustrious career as a conductor and teacher. A frequent visitor to Boston, he made a permanent impression on three generations of Boston concertgoers and musicians, not least the singers of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, whom he conducted more than a dozen times.

After a distinguished four-decade tenure, Richard Coffey, who founded CONCORA (Connecticut Choral Artists) as the region’s first all-professional choir in 1974, will step down from the post of Artistic Director at the conclusion of the 2013–2014 season. CONCORA’s Board of Directors will launch a national search for CONCORA’s next Artistic Director, with the expectation that Mr. Coffey’s successor will be in place to lead the ensemble for the 2015–2016 season.

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• www.choralia.net. Lyrics “sung” by electronically synthesized voices in three levels (single vocal part + metronome clicks, all parts with one emphasized, all parts equal volume). You may vary the tempo of the examples. To hear the sound files, you must download a free “Myriad Music” plug-in. With an additional free “Myriad Melody Player” you may also vary the transposition and stereo right/left positioning of the voices). Approx. 200 titles

Spectrum Music, a music retailer in Lexington, Massachusetts, publishes a quarterly newsletter "for the choral professional." Each issue contains a feature article, often written by Marie Stultz, as well as reviews of new choral issues, both sacred and secular, in all voicings. They are good resources both for programming and for teaching. All issues since Fall 1997 are available online as PDF files at http://www.spectrum-music.com/BackIssues.html.