Today we’d like to introduce you to Bruce Tammen.
Bruce, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
After spending several years as a professional choral singer in Chicago, I segued into teaching voice and conducting choirs on the college level, where I was employed for twenty years– at Luther College, the University of Chicago, and the University of Virginia. My experiences were good and formative– I sang and worked under some of the most notable people in my field, including Weston Noble, Helmuth Rilling, and Robert Shaw, all of whom were successful leaders and entrepreneurs, as well as outstanding musicians. I learned a lot about music and about training choirs by observing and working for them, and then had my own choirs, and students, through whom I learned to conduct, lead and teach. I also gained insight into how these conductors set up their programs, how they planned their concerts, how they handled their employees and support staff– in general, how they built successful careers, from the ground up. Mr. Shaw, in particular, often urged me, and others, to break out from the shelter of the academic environment, and start our own programs, build choirs in the community, utilize the resources at hand.
In 2001, my family and I returned to Chicago for my wife’s job, and I was temporarily unemployed– which presented me with the opportunity, and necessity, to start out on my own. I contacted singers who had formerly been my students at the University of Chicago and invited them to join me in starting a new choir, which I called “Chicago Chorale,” hoping to attract and build constituency from throughout the city. I also arranged for a rehearsal space and printed music and set up a first performance, a couple of months down the road. We held our first rehearsal on Wednesday, October 3, 2001, with twenty-four singers, and have been operating without a break ever since.
Our early audiences were not large, and we charged minimal prices for tickets. It took a couple of years to get around to applying for 501 c 3 status, so we did not actively fundraise, either. Operating funds, for the first couple of years, came primarily from my family’s savings.
From the very beginning, our repertoire included both unaccompanied pieces, and large, orchestral works. The latter requires professional soloists. Orchestras and soloists are expensive– so we have been forced to grow, to expand our audience and donor base, to present concerts outside of Hyde Park– all of which has been very good for us. We compete successfully for the audience, and critical notice, with professional ensembles with much larger budgets than ours, and are able to maintain a regular roster of about sixty singers.
Has it been a smooth road?
We define ourselves as singing serious, high-art music, at a high level. We have to attract an audience which wants to hear this repertoire; we have to attract singers who are capable of singing it. Neither is easy. Long-term planning is difficult; will the singers we need, show up? Will audiences support us? Can we depend on our marketing and fund-raising to pay the bills, especially for large-scale works? I have programmed a couple of pieces that did not attract as many listeners as we wanted; I have programmed a couple of pieces for which I did not have all the singers I needed. And on a more practical plane: we have no permanent rehearsal venue or concert venues and have been forced to move around quite a bit. I constantly make choices which must push us, but not push us over the edge. Things have always worked out; we are noted locally for our programming, and we are solvent. But I would be foolish if I did not constantly keep my eyes open and plan for trouble.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Chicago Chorale – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We are a choir of about sixty voices, which presents a series of three concert preparations per year, mostly in Hyde Park and Lincoln Park. Our repertoire is of the serious, high-art variety; our programs combine new, unfamiliar works with established classics, and smaller, unaccompanied works with major orchestral oratorios. Critics comment on our vocal purity, on our stylistic accuracy, and on our adventurous programming. We occupy a niche of our own; our members are not professional, union musicians, but neither are they casual or “amateurish”– we are very disciplined and we maintain high professional standards. We are frequently mentioned in “ten best performances” lists at the end of the year, along with such groups as the Chicago Symphony, Lyric Opera, and Music of the Baroque. People who do not know us, and have not heard us, do not at all expect this level from us, and we enjoy their surprise and disbelief.
We are currently in the midst of preparing a new strategic plan. At present, any and everything is on the table. For my own part– I can promise that we will continue to focus on being surprisingly good at what we do; that we will continue to demonstrate that a group of people working together is much stronger than the sum of the individuals involved; and that there is a particular genius in focusing on the “local,” on the people and the talents in our midst, rather than in looking outside and importing our talent.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love Chicago’s spaciousness and vitality. People are willing to try almost anything, here. I also like the racial and ethnic diversity. I love our neighborhoods, I love the many different restaurants and styles of food available. I love that we have major universities here– I attended two of them, myself, Northwestern and the University of Chicago, and am very proud of my connection with them, and excited about the people they draw, and the growth and activities they foster. I particularly love Lake Michigan, and the difference this makes in our culture. And I like the many extensive parks, particularly Jackson and Washington Parks, on both sides of our neighborhood.
What do I like least? I must completely contradict everything I have listed above, and confess that I came from a small town and wish I could still live in one. Urban life is crowded and stressful, and often bewildering. I do my best to live a small town life here but miss the real thing.
Contact Info:
- Address: Chicago Chorale
1100 E. 55th Street
Chicago, IL 60615 - Website: chicagochorale.org
- Phone: 773-306-6195
- Email: chicagochorale@gmail.com
- Instagram: @chicagochorale
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChicagoChorale/
- Twitter: @chicagochorale
- Other: chicagochorale.org
Image Credit:
Kasmine Kwong, Dan Dry, Erielle Bakkum
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