Capitol Hill Chorale

We're not your typical community choir.

The Capitol Hill Chorale (CHC) is a 110-voice auditioned chorus founded in 1993 to provide an opportunity to sing and hear choral music on Capitol Hill. It was founded by Capitol Hill residents and music activists who believe that choral music provides a very effective way to build community. Since its founding, the Chorale has performed more than 70 choral programs, toured Europe, uncovered rarely performed pieces, and commissioned new works.

2022–2023 marks the Capitol Hill Chorale’s 30th season rehearsing and performing on Capitol Hill and its 23rd season under the baton of Artistic Director Frederick Binkholder, also the Director of Choirs at Georgetown University, who continues to bring innovative programming and high musical standards.

The mission of the Capitol Hill Chorale is to provide an inspiring and welcoming musical experience for its members and audiences from around the city, while retaining close ties with the Capitol Hill community. Our vision is to be an ensemble with a city-wide reputation for high quality choral performance of innovative and unusual programs that attracts singers and audiences from around the capitol region while deepening our value as an asset to the Capitol Hill community and engaging the support and pride of Capitol Hill residents and businesses.

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Artistic Director Binkholder's programming has included a wide repertoire—from the major works in the classical choral canon, to works by early music masters, contemporary composers, and other genres of choral literature. Recent highlights include: the 2019 summer tour of the country of Georgia, where a portion of the Chorale performed Zakaria Paliashvili’s Orthodox Divine Liturgy; a concert of German lieder in memory of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; programs exploring the American shape-note and Shaker traditions; and several programs of jazz interpretations featuring the David Jellema Ensemble. The Chorale regularly collaborates with other local groups, such as the Washington Saxophone Quartet.

The Chorale established its tradition of performing major Orthodox liturgical works with the North American premiere of Gretchaninoff’s setting of the All-Night Vigil (Op. 59) during its very first season. Artistic Director Binkholder has expanded this tradition, leading Chorale performances of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in settings by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Zakaria Paliashvili, and Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac. In its June 2016 program, the Chorale honored the centenary of World War I by performing Kastalsky’s rarely performed Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes (1917).

Boston-based composer Kevin Siegfried has been the Chorale’s Composer-in-Residence since March 2014, and the Chorale is honored to have premiered a number of his new works, including the cantatas Child of Earth (2011), Angel of Light (2015), Vidimus Stellam (2016), and Music of the Spheres (2017) for chorus and glass armonica—the last of which featured glass armonica player Dean Shostak.

In 2018, the Chorale was awarded the Chorus America/ASCAP Alice Parker Award for its contribution to the creation of new and challenging choral music. The Chorale won a WAMMIE (Washington Area Music Association Award) for Best Area Choral Group in 2008, and received nominations in 2017 and 2020. CHC has also been a finalist in the CityPaper's annual Best of DC multiple times in recent years.

Additional information regarding the Chorale’s first commercially produced recording (a setting of sacred Georgian chants on the Orthodox Divine Liturgy by Georgian composer Zakaria Paliashvili) and the Chorale itself can be found at capitolhillchorale.org. You can follow the Chorale on Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify.