Anthony Blake Clark, the music director of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, says his job “requires a high-level, bird’s-eye view, an understanding of musical form, and the large brushstrokes that give you goosebumps.” Choral Arts will give a free concert on Dec. 7. Photo courtesy of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society

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During the darkest period of the year, the incandescence of the holidays glows. This holiday season, audiences can unwrap a lineup chockablock with performances from the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, a 99-voice strong chorus of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses.

The lineup kicks off this year on December 2 with a performance at the Baltimore Basilica. That’s followed on Dec. 5 with caroling through the streets of Little Italy, a free church concert on Dec. 7, and the Dec. 20 Holiday Spectacular at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

Televised on WMAR, Baltimore’s ABC affiliate, the annual holiday concert reaches about 100,000 viewers a year and even won an Emmy Award in 2006.

Planning for the holiday season begins in July, said music director and conductor Anthony Blake Clark.

“I like to focus on the tenderness of Christmas,” particularly in a world, he added, where “everything feels mean, feels rough.”

Roots of an ensemble

Created in 1967, the society began as the choir at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, an Anglican parish in the Guilford neighborhood of Baltimore. Since then, it has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center under the baton of notable conductors like Roger Norrington and Claudio Scimone. The chorale also appeared at the Festival of the Costa del Sol in Spain.

Although its name suggests otherwise, the Baltimore Choral Arts Society includes not only a chorus but also a chamber choir, a professional 35-member orchestra and an educational outreach ensemble.

Its longtime music director Tom Hall, who retired in 2017, helped expand the group and established the annual concert during his 35 years at the organization.

“Tom Hall made the chorus into a tight, lyrical ensemble, and Blake has brought his own stamp of insight and excellence to it,” according to Judith Krummeck, the popular afternoon voice at classical WBJCFM, who has narrated the Christmas show at the Basilica for several years.

Its success is due to “consistently high standards and varied programming,” she said.

Overseas concerts

The society spent much of its summer performing internationally.

They started with a four-concert tour of the Netherlands and Germany. In Amsterdam, they performed “a concert of mostly American music in Westerkerk, the famous church with the bell tower, visible to much of western Amsterdam,” Clark recalled, “perhaps most famously seen and heard by Anne Frank from the secret family compound just next door.”

The whirlwind tour then moved on to Berlin and a performance in the St. Matthäus-Kirche next to the Philharmonie.

“Over four days we joined with almost 1,000 singers under my mentor, Simon Halsey, to present a gargantuan concert of Mendelssohn’s ‘Lobgesang’ at the Berlin Philharmonie,” Clark said in an email.

The Baltimore Choral Arts Society also performed in Bach’s church in Leipzig, as well as in Prague’s Smetana Hall at the Prague Summer Nights Festival Orchestra.

The nearly three-week European adventure, Clark said, “was filled with amazing music in incredible halls, almost all of which were completely full!”

During off hours, Clark added, performers and staff carved out time for touring and socializing. “It really strengthens the bonds of a choir to go on tours,” he said.

Eyeing the next generation

For Choral Arts’ sixth international trip last summer, chorus manager Kelly Buchanan helped everything run smoothly.

With more than 140 voices and a schedule of about 20 concerts per year, she said, “There are a lot of moving parts…I help make sure everyone is where they need to be, when they need to be there, whether it’s on time and in the right place for a rehearsal or in a lineup for the correct place on the risers for a concert.”

Buchanan and the rest of the staff of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society are committed to teaching the next generation. In general, the U.S. lags behind other countries when it comes to teaching students the basics of music.

“It’s not unusual for someone in Austria to be able to tell you about Mahler,” said Clark, who has a doctorate from the Peabody Conservatory. “Our music education system has been reduced to rubble.”

Clark emphasized the need for expanded musical education in American classrooms.

“The state government regulatory bodies chip away at music education almost every year — less time in music classrooms, less funding, fewer teachers, etc.,” he said.

In an effort to change that, Choral Arts sends its certified music teachers to the Enoch Pratt Free Library to teach preschoolers. These free, 30-minute classes are known as Sing and Play with Baltimore Choral Arts.

Generally there is audience support for the ensemble, Clark remarked, but the group needs more regular subscribers. “They want to come, but they don’t subscribe,” he said. “They buy single tickets.”

Economic pressures aside, Clark loves his job, which, he said, “requires a high-level, bird’s-eye view, an understanding of musical form, and the large brushstrokes that give you goosebumps.”

A free concert takes place on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 3 p.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 5701 Loch Raven Boulevard, Baltimore. For more information, visit baltimorechoralarts.org or call (410) 523-7070.