About Us
Lakeland Choral Society is a registered non-profit organization dedicated to awarding music scholarships to vocal students, and performing great choral works. Our organization endeavors to give back to the community through our shared love of song, and to inspire a new generation of musicians to appreciate great works of choral literature. Music is a powerfully emotive tool capable of creating community where isolation existed. Among the aspirations of the Lakeland Choral Society is that of bridging the distance between the cities and towns of Polk County so that together they may resonate with the timeless harmonies of great choral music.
The Lakeland Choral Society's founder and director for fourteen years, Robert Boulware, organized the Society during the Fall of 1967 for the purpose of singing Antonio Vivaldi's Gloria with the Lakeland Symphony Orchestra (now the Imperial Symphony Orchestra). The symphony's concert, featuring the fifty-two voice Choral Society, was presented on December 12, 1967 in Branscomb Auditorium at Florida Southern College. For several years, beginning in 1968, the Choral Society sang twice each year as a part of the orchestra's concert series, singing once with the orchestra and once presenting a full choral concert.
LCS has, through the years, performed a wide variety of choral music, both sacred and secular, and presented concerts in various locations in Lakeland and the surrounding communities. In addition to local performances, the LCS sang John Rutter's Requiem at Carnegie Hall as part of a ~200 member concert choir, and participated in the Alta Pusteria Choir Festival in northern Italy, along with 98 other choral groups from around the world in 2007. At our Fall 2008 concert, LCS commissioned and performed the premier of Sing to the Lord by Paul Basler, one of the most well-respected and performed composers of our era. Select LCS members presented concerts in Ireland in the summer of 2010. Our most recent international tour was in the summer of 2014.
Extended works performed by the LCS include both the Vivaldi and Poulenc settings of Gloria, Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise, Faure's Requiem, Rutter's Magnificat, Haydn's Heiligmesse, Mozart's Te Deum and Vespers, Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, Brahm's Psalm 150, Schubert's Mass in G, Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, and Randall Thompson's Frostiana.
In the 47 years of providing outstanding choral music performances in the Lakeland area, the Choral Society has had six other extremely fine directors, Ada Gribble, Bennett Penn, Moody Chisholm, Dr. Larry Sledge, Mr. Kris Ridgley, and Beth Cummings, who has directed the group since 2017.
Lakeland Choral Society is a registered non-profit organization dedicated to awarding music scholarships to vocal students, and performing great choral works. Our organization endeavors to give back to the community through our shared love of song, and to inspire a new generation of musicians to appreciate great works of choral literature. Music is a powerfully emotive tool capable of creating community where isolation existed. Among the aspirations of the Lakeland Choral Society is that of bridging the distance between the cities and towns of Polk County so that together they may resonate with the timeless harmonies of great choral music.
The Lakeland Choral Society's founder and director for fourteen years, Robert Boulware, organized the Society during the Fall of 1967 for the purpose of singing Antonio Vivaldi's Gloria with the Lakeland Symphony Orchestra (now the Imperial Symphony Orchestra). The symphony's concert, featuring the fifty-two voice Choral Society, was presented on December 12, 1967 in Branscomb Auditorium at Florida Southern College. For several years, beginning in 1968, the Choral Society sang twice each year as a part of the orchestra's concert series, singing once with the orchestra and once presenting a full choral concert.
LCS has, through the years, performed a wide variety of choral music, both sacred and secular, and presented concerts in various locations in Lakeland and the surrounding communities. In addition to local performances, the LCS sang John Rutter's Requiem at Carnegie Hall as part of a ~200 member concert choir, and participated in the Alta Pusteria Choir Festival in northern Italy, along with 98 other choral groups from around the world in 2007. At our Fall 2008 concert, LCS commissioned and performed the premier of Sing to the Lord by Paul Basler, one of the most well-respected and performed composers of our era. Select LCS members presented concerts in Ireland in the summer of 2010. Our most recent international tour was in the summer of 2014.
Extended works performed by the LCS include both the Vivaldi and Poulenc settings of Gloria, Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise, Faure's Requiem, Rutter's Magnificat, Haydn's Heiligmesse, Mozart's Te Deum and Vespers, Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, Brahm's Psalm 150, Schubert's Mass in G, Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, and Randall Thompson's Frostiana.
In the 47 years of providing outstanding choral music performances in the Lakeland area, the Choral Society has had six other extremely fine directors, Ada Gribble, Bennett Penn, Moody Chisholm, Dr. Larry Sledge, Mr. Kris Ridgley, and Beth Cummings, who has directed the group since 2017.
