News

Press Release

Chatham Chorale
P.O. Box 1111, West Dennis, MA 02670 Tel: 888.556.2707

October 26, 2009

Contact: Charles (Bud) Ferris
Tel: 508 432 6918
Email: chferris@comcast.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bossi to Retire from Chatham Chorale

The Chatham Chorale announces that long-term music director Margaret T. Bossi will retire at the end of the 2009-2010 season.

Bossi began working as co-director of the Chorale in 1985 and was appointed full-time music director in 1987. During her tenure, the Chorale has become recognized as a dynamic regional musical force. The group regularly collaborates with the Cape Cod Symphony and the New Bedford Symphony, in addition to its own concert series each year. Through more than two decades, the Chorale has performed great choral masterpieces such as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Bach's B Minor Mass and Mozart's Requiem. Bossi's adventurous musical spirit and imaginative programming has also led the Chorale in other directions, from Klezmer to Broadway, and from Classical to Renaissance to New Age music.

Musical highlights of her 25-year association with the Chatham Chorale include two major commissions from composer Ronald Perera: The Outermost House (1991), based on Henry Beston's classic narrative of Cape Cod, and Why I Wake Early (2007), a choral cycle of poems by poet Mary Oliver.

"Working with the Chatham Chorale has been my pride and inspiration for almost half my life," says Bossi, "It would be hard to find a more dedicated group of singers anywhere. We rehearse together, we perform together, we party together. Through the unifying power of music we have forged ourselves into a singularly strong and durable community. I have great optimism and confidence that the Chatham Chorale will keep singing long into the future. I look forward to what the next chapter will bring for the Chorale and for our wonderful audiences. This is not exactly a full retirement, since I will continue to teach school and work at my church job. With my new freedom, however, I intend to become a concertgoer instead of a concert doer. I'm expanding my vegetable garden and I will have time to enjoy my husband and our beautiful grandchildren."

# # #