Concord Women’s Chorus is directed by Jane Ring Frank, now in her 29th year. We perform a wide range of classical and contemporary music, with emphasis on works written for women’s voices.
Our Story
For Concord Women’s Chorus, music is alchemy. Our commitment to the mastery and performance of a dynamic repertoire for women transforms the act of choral singing into an instrument for collaboration, education, and connection. We are confident singers who care deeply about creating, through women’s voices, a source of strength and inspiration for ourselves, our audience, and the world around us.
The chorus began in 1960 as the Concord Madrigals, a small group of women who expressed, through song, the strength of female community. Over the years the group has increased in size and capacity and greatly expanded its repertoire. In 2005, the Concord Madrigals became Concord Women’s Chorus, a name that reflects not only the evolution of the chorus but the abiding power of women’s voices.
In addition to our regular concerts, we often engage in other significant performances and projects. These have included benefit concerts for Wayside Hospice and the Bethke Cancer Center and collaborations with the Concord-Carlisle High School Girls Chorus, the Concord Orchestra and the Concord Festival of Authors. We have taken several concert tours in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. In our ongoing desire to bring attention and excitement to music written for women, we have commissioned two new works: Concord Fragments, by Libby Larsen (2010) and The Tree House, by Beth Denisch (2017).
Read about our commissions.
Listen to excerpts from past concerts here.
Our Mission
To perform music for women’s voices with artistry, strength, and joy and to advance the choral repertoire for women.
Artistic Director Jane Ring Frank is one of Greater Boston’s most acclaimed choral conductors. She brings to CWC and our audiences an unerring ear for intonation and sound color, a command of choral and orchestral conducting, uncompromising scholarship, and a love of connecting with listeners. Since moving to Boston in 1991, Ring Frank has conducted at Harvard, served as Director of Chapel Music at the Episcopal Divinity School, and served on the faculty of Emerson College. She was also the conductor of Philovox, E. C. Schirmer’s resident professional recording chorus, and Founding Director of the innovative Boston Secession, with whom she produced two significant recordings. She has toured in the United States and Europe, and currently conducts Cantemus Chamber Chorus, is Minister of Music and Worship Arts at the First Congregational Church of Winchester, and is an Affiliated Scholar with the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
Concord Women’s Chorus has had the great benefit and pleasure of Jane’s leadership for more than 25 years.
Based in Boston, Scott Nicholas is an accomplished pianist known as much for exceptional sensitivity to the performers he accompanies as for his technique. With a repertoire spanning classical and musical theater, Nicholas has appeared throughout the U.S. and internationally in solo and chamber performances.
In addition, he has served as the rehearsal and performance pianist for Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Borromeo String Quartet, the US Airforce Clarinet Ensemble, Longwood Opera, the Minnesota Opera, Boston Secession, the Concord Women’s Chorus, the Cambridge Community Chorus, Boston Lyric Opera’s outreach programs, and the Leontyne Price Vocal Arts Competition.
Nicholas has recorded several works by Graham Gordon Ramsay, most recently Six Piano Preludes, part of a collection of solo instrumental works from Albany Records. He has also recorded frequently with E.C. Schirmer’s Philovox Ensemble and performed on WGBH-FM and WBUR-FM in Boston.
Nicholas has served as music director for the New England Conservatory Opera Workshop, Central Square Theater, Franklin Performing Arts Company, Suffolk University, and Emerson College. He is also on the faculty at Emerson; teaches piano and coaches opera and music theater at Suffolk; and offers instruction in piano, theory, and vocal coaching at Encore Music Academy. Nicholas holds a B.A. in music education from The College of New Jersey and an M.M. in accompanying/coaching from the New England Conservatory.
Concord Women’s Chorus is a member of the Greater Boston Choral Consortium and Chorus America.
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