The OSM Choir

Background

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Choir was established in the 1980s at the request of Charles Dutoit. Composed of 50 professional singers and 80 to 100 volunteer singers, the Choir has joined forces with the OSM for hundreds of performances of masterworks from the repertoire.

The OSM Choir has been heard in Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa, New York, Philadelphia and Saratoga Springs in works as diverse as Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem, Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, Shostakovich’s Babi Yar Symphony and Dallapiccola’s Il Prigionero. In addition to singing under the direction of Rafael Payare, Kent Nagano and Charles Dutoit, the OSM Choir has collaborated with such guest conductors as Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Krzysztof Penderecki, Robert Shaw, Iwan Edwards (its director for some 20 years) and Andrew Megill, chorus master since 2011.

Recordings and distinctions

Among the many OSM recordings on which the OSM Choir can be heard, noteworthy are Berlioz’s Les Troyens, which was honored with a Grammy Award in 1996, and Holst’s The Planets, which received the Grand Prix du disque – Canada in 1988.

Andrew Megill, Chorusmaster

Andrew Megill is recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of his generation, known for his unusually wide-ranging repertoire, extending from early music to newly composed works. He has prepared choruses for the American Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the National Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, and he has worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jane Glover, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, and Kent Nagano. He is Director of Choral Organizations Activities at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and serves as Artistic Advisor and Director of Choral Activities for the Carmel Bach Festival and Choral Director for Music of the Baroque (Chicago). He previously taught at the University of Illinois and Westminster Choir College and has been a Guest Conductor for the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Broadcast by Public Radio International and the BBC, his work can be heard on numerous recordings, including Magnussen’s Psalm (Albany Records), Haydn’s Masses (Naxos), and works by Caleb Burhans (Cantaloupe).