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About The Chorale
 The Chorale is
the official concert choir of the University of Notre Dame. A mixed
ensemble of 60+ voices specializing in choral works from the Renaissance to
the present, it performs on campus a fall and spring concert in the Leighton Concert Hall of the Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts in November and April. In addition, the Chorale performs Handel's Messiah
with Chamber Orchestra in the Leighton Concert Hall in early December.
Each year's
events include, besides the concerts on campus, a Winter Tour to cities around the USA in January, an evening concert on Friday of
Commencement Weekend and participation in the Baccalaureate Mass the next day. The Chorale also takes an
international tour every three or four years during the summer, which, in 1997, included cities in Italy (Rome, Orvieto, Spoleto, Assisi, Siena,
Florence, Venice, Padua). In May 2000 the Chorale traveled to southern France (Nice, Arles, Aix-en-Provence), Switzerland (Geneva), southern Germany (Munich, Passau), Austria (Salzburg) and northern Italy (Venice). In May 2005 the Chorale toured New Zealand's South Island, performing in Christchurch, Timaru, Dunedin, and Nelson. In May 2008 the Chorale returned to New Zealand’s South Island, this time with concerts in Queenstown and Greymouth. In May 2011 the ensemble traveled to Rome for a week’s stay, with a side trip to Florence and Assisi; this tour included singing for the Pope at the General Audience, singing for Saturday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, and full concerts in the Basilica San Francesco in Assisi and in Sant’ Ignazio in Rome.
About The Director
 Alexander Blachly, the 1992 recipient
of the Noah Greenberg Award given by the American Musicological Society to
stimulate historically aware performances and the study of historical
performing practices, has been active in Early Music as both performer and
scholar for the past 40 years. He earned his post-graduate degrees in
musicology from Columbia University. He is the founder-director of the
internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Pomerium, which is
recording an on-going series of compact discs of a cappella Renaissance
music. These recordings have appeared on the Old Hall, Glissando, Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv,
Dorian, Classic Masters, and Nonesuch labels. Prior to assuming the post of
Director of Choral Music at the University of Notre Dame in 1993, Mr. Blachly taught early music and directed collegia musica at Columbia
University, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, Rutgers University,
and the University of Pennsylvania, where for eight years he directed the a
cappella ensemble Ancient Voices. Mr. Blachly
directs the University of Notre Dame Chorale and Chamber Orchestra and
the Schola Musicorum (chant choir) of Notre Dame; has taught Music History I
(Medieval & Renaissance), Music History III (Haydn to Debussy),
Early Music Performance Practice, Renaissance Notation, Freshman Fine Arts University
Seminar, Core, Music 122/222 (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Brahms), Music 50101 (Vocal Sacred Music I—Gregorian Chant), Music 50102 (Sacred Polyphony of the Renaissance), and Music 50103 (Getting Back to the Sources: Making Computerized Performing Editions from Old Notations). For eleven years he hosted a three-hour classical-music radio show each Wednesday
morning on the University’s classical-music radio station, WSND 88.9 FM.
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