About Us
The Princeton Singers is a small, professional, independent chamber choir. In recent years, it has earned a reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent chamber choirs. Founded in 1983 by John Bertalot, then choir-master organist at Trinity Church in Princeton, New Jersey, the ensemble was soon hailed by critics for its clarity of tone, elegance of execution, and purity of tuning. Since being appointed Artistic Director in 1998, composer-conductor Steven Sametz has expanded the group’s repertoire to range from medieval to modern, including gospel, jazz, and popular song. Today, The Princeton Singers is a vital force in the creation of new works for choir. Both through a strong commissioning program and participation in workshops for aspiring composers, The Princeton Singers is strongly committed to the creation of new choral repertoire.
In addition to popular hometown performances, The Princeton Singers has been featured at conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the American Choral Directors Association and Chorus America. Sametz has led the ensemble in collaborative concerts with Chanticleer, The American Boychoir, Westminster Choir College’s Schola Cantorum, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Lehigh University Choral Arts. The Princeton Singers has been heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” With Heart and Voice,” and broadcast by the BBC while on tour in Europe. A full listing of The Princeton Singers’ CDs may be viewed at here.
Dr. Steven Sametz – Artistic Director
Renowned composer and conductor, Steven Sametz, is the Ronald J. Ulrich Professor of Music and director of Lehigh University Choral Arts, one of the country's premiere choral programs. He is also the founding director of The Lehigh University Choral Composer Forum, a summer course of study designed to mentor emerging choral composers.
Recent guest conducting appearances include the Taipei Philharmonic Foundation, the Berkshire Music Festival, the New York Chamber Symphony, and the Netherlands Radio Choir. Dr. Sametz' compositions have been heard throughout the world at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Santa Fe music festivals. His in time of appears on the recent Grammy award-winning CD by Chanticleer, "Colors of Love," and his work may be heard on six other Chanticleer CDs, as well as Lehigh University Choir's "Live from Taipei," Lehigh University Choral Arts' "What Wondrous Love is This," The Princeton Singers' "Reincarnations," "Christmas with the Princeton Singers," and "Old, New Borrowed, Blues," a collection of his choral arrangements and compositions featuring guest artists Chanticleer in collaboration with The Princeton Singers performing his Dudaryku -- A Village Scene, written for these two groups.
Most recently, Dr. Sametz conducted the Princeton Singers at the American Choral Directors' Association convention in Pittsburg as well as at the American Guild of Organists convention in Philadelphia.
Dr. Sametz has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Council on the Arts, and the Santa Fe music festival, creating new works for Chanticleer, the Dale Warland Singers, Philadelphia Singers, Pro Arte Chamber Choir, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Connecticut Choral Artists, and the King of Thailand. His compositions are published by Oxford University Press, Alliance Music, ECS Publishing, GIA, and Steven Sametz Publications.
Dr. Sametz has also served as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and Chorus America. He has been Director of Choral Activites at Harvard and is the founder and director of the Lehigh University Choral Union. At the Santa Fe Music Festival, he conducted his own works in a program entitled "Sametz conducts Sametz." He has conducted Chanticleer in the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 in New York and San Francisco to critical acclaim. Dr. Sametz holds degrees from Yale University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany.