December is filled with choral concerts, and in the coming weeks nearly all of the operational non-profit choirs — not to mention dozens of choruses hosted by places worship — will see full houses for their holiday programs. 

“There are audiences for these choirs, robust audiences,” said Ben A. Spalding, who formed Spire Chamber Ensemble in 2010 and has turned it into a nationally renowned organization that presents everything from Baroque masterpieces to gospel collaborations.  

“We see generations of families coming to our Messiah each year,” Ben said, “from little kids to grandparents: They’ll buy 20 tickets.” During the holidays Kansas Citians, perhaps Midwesterners in general, find themselves investing “in things that are enriching, that make the community stronger, that make ties between communities stronger,” he added.  

But beyond just attending concerts, Kansas Citians young and old are singing in choirs, too, in numbers that suggest that we live in a sort of choral mecca. Cities with larger populations have far fewer choirs relative to population, local directors have often observed. “It is extremely likely that we have more per capita than St. Louis does,” said Ben, whose Spire Ensemble celebrates its 15th season this year. 

So what is it, exactly, that makes choral music unique? Anyone who has sung in a choir knows that creating harmony in proximity with others is one of the most powerful communal experiences available to us. 

“Choral music brings disparate groups together in ways that are hard to find in any other profession or vocation,” Ben said. “Because we are sharing breath, we are sharing intent, we are sharing common vision. And that’s why people want to sing in choirs.” 

Moreover, for many singers — whether professional or not — the once-a-week rehearsal serves as a momentary break from the world’s chaos.

“Music is their special outlet for the week, choirs are taking singers out of their day-to-day lives for a couple of hours and giving them something beautiful,” said conductor Matthew Shepard, who founded Te Deum in 2008 as a volunteer choir and has built its artistic level to the point where it begins to rival the best of the region’s choruses.    

Te Deum, a relative newcomer to Kansas City, was formed initially as an ensemble to perform solely sacred music, and it began with a series of “brainstorm sessions” to envision what niche it could occupy — and how it could operate on solid financial footing from the start.  

“I became so convinced that this was a necessary, valuable part of Kansas City that I wanted to build it from the ground up,” said Matthew, who earned his doctorate in conducting at the University of Illinois.  “I started by recruiting a board of directors, before I ever auditioned singers. … I did not want this group to be on the whim of whether we had a good first concert or not.” 

Matthew realized that limiting the choir to sacred music might prove restrictive.

“But obviously such a large part of our important repertoire is sacred music. And we’ve worked really hard to be expansive about what we mean by ‘sacred.’ We definitely don’t just sing liturgical music.” 

Te Deum has sung everything from Gregorian Chant to James MacMillan’s hair-raising Seven Last Words from the Cross and yet until recently was able to remain a volunteer choir. 

One of the most firmly established choirs here is the Kansas City Chorale, founded in 1982 and led by Charles Bruffy since 1988. It is certainly the most extensively recorded chorus in town: Its 12 Grammy nominations and three Grammy Awards have brought the Chorale perhaps the widest international renown of any local performing arts group. 

Long considered a sort of “gold standard” locally, they also perform prolifically: During the holidays alone they have four different programs to prepare. 

Unlike other Kansas City performing artists, who often move to Chicago or New York or Hollywood when they get famous, the Chorale’s singers live and work among us: They are professors, public school teachers, church musicians. 

“The good part about that is that we rehearse together all the time,” Charles said. “Our singers really know each other, they’re part of each other’s lives.” Having a choir embedded in the fabric of the community gives us all a sense of ownership.

Several other prominent choruses in Kansas City perform at a professional level a great deal of the time — even if, for the time being, they remain volunteer choirs. The William Baker Festival Singers is just one of a whole array of ensembles that director William Baker and his staff operate — in Kansas City, Chicago, and Atlanta. 

Locally the Roeland Park-based Choral Foundation, under whose auspices the various groups operate, hosts the Festival Singers, two Summer Singers choirs, handbell ensembles, and the Spanish-language choir Voces Festivas.

“For a city its size, Kansas City is uniquely blessed with choruses,” said William, who inaugurated the 50-voice Festival Singers here in 1998. “We stand on the same level or higher than many cities two and three times our size, in terms of quantity and quality.”

William attributes the vigor of the local scene to historically strong school music programs, local houses of worship that remain devoted to the choral experience, and (heretofore) vibrant media coverage.

Moreover, he added: “By and large, the community of choral leaders and organizations in the Kansas City region remains mutually supportive. We have less back-biting, less undermining in this community than in most that I have been involved with.” 

William is proud to have introduced, early on, several large-scale masterpieces that had rarely, if ever, been performed here by local forces: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and B-minor Mass, for example, and Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh. 

He tries hard to create a congenial atmosphere at his concerts. “I want my choirs not only to be the best-sounding groups in town, I want them to be the friendliest, the warmest, the most welcoming choruses in the city.” 

He rejects the notion that Kansas City has too many choirs. “I remember hearing someone say, ‘We don’t need another choir.’ And I said, Kansas City needs 25 more choirs. I’m a ‘more the merrier’ kind of guy. If we’ve got 20 or 25 choirs, I’d like to see it be 50.” 

• Spire Chamber Ensemble December 11th and 13th: Messiah; spirechamberensemble.org. 
• Te Deum December 16th and 17th: A Precious Child; te-deum.org. 
• Kansas City Chorale December 5th: Wintersong; December 10th: Alpine Christmas; December 13th: A Christmas Carol; December 14th: A Chorale Family Christmas; kcchorale.org.
• William Baker Festival Singers December 13th and 15th: Candlelight, Carols, and Cathedral; December 18th: Navidad con Voces Festivas; festivalsingers.org.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send an email to paul@kcindependent.com or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501) or Twitter/Instagram (@phorsleycritic).