Who are we?

BOSTON SECESSION
Professional Choral Ensemble
Jane Ring Frank, Artistic Director

Boston Secession is a professional choral ensemble comprised of 25 voices, with a repertoire ranging from medieval chant to contemporary classical music.

Founded in 1996 by Conductor and Artistic Director Jane Ring Frank, Boston Secession has garnered critical acclaim for its uniquely blended and transparent sound. The Boston Globe called Secession an “extraordinary chorus, notable for its beautiful balance, musical surety, and English-styled straight-toned singing” (March, 2008), while Tom Garvey of the Hub Review praised the ensemble for its “lushly transparent singing conducted with intelligence and wit” (February, 2007).

Boston Secession performs four times annually, with thematic programs exploring topics ranging from the enduring influence of George Frideric Handel to expressions of passion and sensuality in choral music. Secession concerts frequently feature premieres of new choral music. The ensemble’s annual alternative Valentine’s Day concert, (Un)Lucky in Love, which takes a lighthearted look at the vicissitudes of love, has sold out for many years.

In the spring of 2009, Boston Secession will premiere Testimony of Witnesses, a new multilingual oratorio based on the poetry of Holocaust victims and survivors by Secession’s composer-in-residence Ruth Lomon. Testimony of Witnesses is a concert-length work scored for chorus, orchestra, and soloists. Lomon's provocative and hauntingly beautiful settings illuminate the personal experience of eighteen writers, whose texts – in seven languages – reflect the truly international impact of the Holocaust and the variety of individuals and communities that were forever changed by it.

In the spring of 2008, Boston Secession released its second professional CD recording, Surprised by Beauty: Minimalism in Choral Music, featuring compositions by Gavin Bryars, Arvo Pärt, Ruth Lomon, and William Duckworth. Secession’s first recording, Afterlife: German Choral Meditations on Mortality. was praised by the American Record Guide, which noted that the ensemble is “a very fine one, well blended and excellently in tune. Their performances of often quite difficult music are assured and musical.”

Boston Secession was founded on the belief that vocal music is a uniquely powerful way to share intellectual ideas and has the power, above all arts, to create community. Its mission is to create, through its superlative performances, a deeper connection between the audience and the performers.

So, why the name Boston Secession?
One hundred years ago, Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s artist’s co-operative, the Vienna Secession, created a sensation by displaying paintings at eye level for the first time. Now the common practice for all art galleries, the Secessionists’ approach modernized the presentation of art forever. Inspired by the original Secession, Jane Ring Frank founded Boston Secession in 1996 as a professional studio for modern vocal performance, bringing classical music to "eye level."