About Us

In the long, snowy winter of 2010, a handful of Philadelphia choral singers decided that they needed more from the local music scene. Hoping for an ensemble featuring challenging repertoire, cooperative musicianship, and innovative programming, they decided to take matters into their own capable hands and founded Chestnut Street Singers.

Based in Center City, Chestnut Street Singers is a cooperative chamber choir committed to active engagement with musical traditions and their evolution. We seek to illuminate commonalities linking the early Renaissance to contemporary practices, integrating canonical repertoire with lesser-known works and augmenting our musicality with creative and irreverent programming. We are dedicated to presenting polished, engaging performances while still being able to sip wine with our audience.

Besides performing great and sometimes under-appreciated music, our goals are many: we cherish our place in the Philadelphia community and are dedicated to offering concerts that are accessible––both financially and intellectually––to our friends, neighbors, and students; we support the work of young composers and instrumentalists; we celebrate the varied inspirations––sometimes silly, sometimes sexy, sometimes thoughtful, and sometimes all three––of classical music; and we believe that making music together is a stimulating, strenuous endeavor, one worth celebrating and supporting.