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 three new works: Concord Fragments, by Libby Larsen (2010), The Tree House, by Beth Denisch (2017), and Grown Wild by Melissa Dunphy (2021).
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 has conducted Cantemus Chamber Chorus, is Minister of Music and the Arts at the First Congregational Church of Winchester, and was 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 30 years.
Simon Andrews is an English composer-conductor living in Massachusetts. His output ranges from large-scale orchestral works and opera to intimate chamber music, with a special delight in chamber music with solo voices.
Winner of the 1985 Benjamin Britten Prize, his music has been commissioned, performed and recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, The Janacek Philharmonic, the Britten-Pears Orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Cypress Quartet, and Catalyst New Music and many others. His edition-completion of Süssmayr’s contribution to the Mozart Requiem has been performed to critical acclaim in England and America, and led to an accompanying book: Mozart’s Requiem: from 18th century forgery to modern hybrid.
A CD of his chamber music And that moment when the bird sings came out in 2017, the title track of which was described as ‘a clarinet quintet of lyrical impulse.’(Gramophone).
Another track, The heart has narrow banks was praised as “an art song par excellence. Gentle, intimate and subtle…” (SCI Newsletter). His Till voices wake us was recently recorded by the Janáček Philharmonic and will receive its American première in April 2025 by the Lowell Chamber Orchestra.
Before moving to Massachusetts he maintained a lively career as a choral conductor at Franklin & Marshall College, the Harrisburg Choral Society, Millersville University, Harrisburg Opera Chorus, and worked with opera companies on both coasts, Berkeley Opera (now West Edge Opera), Berkeley Contemporary Opera, North Bay Opera, Concert Opera of Philadelphia and Opera Lancaster. He is currently organist at First Parish in Concord, MA and accompanist for the Concord Women’s Chorus.
Concord Women’s Chorus Recording Project
Concord Women’s Chorus (CWC) plans to record and release three commissioned works 2026, a major strategic initiative aligned with our mission to advance women’s choral music and a stated goal in our strategic plan. By recording our commissions, we create a legacy of works written by, for, and about women, whose experiences will resonate with listeners of this generation and beyond.
The pieces to be recorded are Concord Fragments (2010), by Libby Larsen, a three movement piece that sets poems that represent women of Concord from three different ages; The Tree House (2017), by Beth Denisch, based on poetry by Kathleen Jamie, one of Scotland’s most lauded contemporary poets; and Grown Wild (2021) by Melissa Dunphy, is a song poem set for women’s voices and represents a spirit of resilience and hope.
Soundmirror studio will produce the recordings and CWC. Founded in 1972, Soundmirror has has become the premier classical music recording and production company. Their recordings have received 135 GRAMMY nominations and awards.
As a result of this project, CWC’s music will be available for the first time to a worldwide audience that supports women’s choral music.
Concord Women’s Chorus is a member of the Greater Boston Choral Consortium and Chorus America.
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