About
The MIT Concert Choir
MIT Concert Choir is a choral group, open by audition to both graduate and undergraduate students, and to members of the MIT community. The Concert Choir works to create an environment where student singers can learn, perform, and contribute to the MIT musical community. By bringing together singers in a social, academic, and performance atmosphere, we hope to expose the MIT community to a wide range of choral music literature and history. Concert choir can also be taken for credit as 21M.401.
As MIT's large student chorus, the Concert Choir performs major works from the standard repertoire each semester, as well as a variety of shorter and lesser-known pieces. The Choir has a rich history originating with the all-male Glee Club in 1884 and continuing with the MIT Choral Society from 1923 until the formation of the Concert Choir under John Oliver in 1989. William Cutter, who came to MIT in 1990 as John Oliver's assistant and rehearsal pianist, assumed the direction of MIT's choral program upon Mr. Oliver's departure in 1996.
In recent years, the Concert Choir has toured in Budapest and Vienna and performed in numerous collaborations with the smaller MIT Chamber Chorus, the MIT Symphony Orchestra, the MIT Wind Ensemble, the choirs of Tufts and Brandeis Universities, and the orchestras of Tufts University and Wellesley College. In 2002, the MIT Concert Choir was invited to perform with the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart for MIT's Tech Night at the Pops. Often featuring the finest guest soloists along with student soloists, the student singers of the group regularly expose the MIT community to a wide range of choral music literature.
The MIT Chamber Choir
The Concert Choir is not the only choir at MIT; we also share several members with the Chamber Choir.
Conductor Dr. William C. Cutter
Dr. William Cutter is Lecturer in Music and Director of Choral Programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is conductor of the MIT Concert Choir and Chamber Chorus. A member of the conducting faculty at the Boston Conservatory since 1999, he conducts the Boston Conservatory Chorale and Women's Chorus and teaches graduate conducting. He has also held academic posts at Boston University's School for the Arts, the University of Lowell, and the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and served for five seasons as music director and conductor of the Brookline Chorus, an auditioned eighty-voice community chorus. Dr. Cutter currently serves as artistic director for the Boston Conservatory Summer Choral Insitute for high school vocalists and was recently appointed Chorus Master and Associate Conductor of the Boston Lyric Opera Company. For four summers he was conductor of the Boston University Young Artists Chorus of the Tanglewood Institute, and was music director and conductor of the Opera Laboratory Theater Company, as well as founder and music director of the vocal chamber ensemble CANTO, which specialized in contemporary choral music.
As assistant to John Oliver for the Tanglewood Festival
Chorus, he has prepared choruses for John Williams and Keith Lockhart
and the Boston Pops. In May 1999, he prepared the chorus for two
television tapings and the CD "A Splash of Pops" which featured the
premiere of
With degrees in composition, Dr. Cutter maintains an active career as a composer with recent performances by the Monmouth Civic Chorus, the New Jersey Gay Men's Chorus, the Boston Pops, the New World Chorale in Boston, Melodious Accord of New York City, and Opera Omaha. His music is published by E.C. Schirmer, Boston; Lawson and Gould, New York; Alfred Educational Publishers, Los Angeles; Roger Dean Publishers, Wisconsin; Shawnee Press, Pennsylvania; and Warner/Chappell of Ontario, Canada.
As a professional tenor, he has sung with the premiere vocal ensembles in Boston, including the Handel and Haydn Society, Cantata Singers, Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, and the Harvard Glee Club. He has been a featured soloist on the Cantata Singers' Recital Series and has been a recitalist on the MIT faculty performance series singing the music of Britten, Schubert, and Ives. He has taught voice at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School.
Pianist David Collins
Pianist David Collins has appeared as a collaborator in recitals and chamber music performances throughout New England and the Midwest. A native of northern Michigan, Mr. Collins has performed at chamber music series in Manistique and Escanaba, as well as at the Pine Mountain Music Festival. He also concertized throughout Michigan, Tennessee and upstate New York with violist Robert Dan. In the Boston area, he has performed at Boston University, The Boston Conservatory and at New England Conservatory. He made his Jordan Hall debut in 2002 with the Alhambra Piano Trio.
Mr. Collins holds advanced degrees in composition and chamber music and is currently completing a Doctorate in collaborative piano and vocal coaching at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he is a student of Irma Vallecillo, Kayo Iwama and John Greer. He also served for three summers as the pianist and musical director for the East of Eden Chamber Players, located in Bar Harbor, Maine. In addition to a busy performance schedule, Mr. Collins currently maintains a private vocal coaching studio in the Boston area and is on the accompanying staffs of New England Conservatory, Boston University, and The Boston Conservatory.
