Choral Chameleon

Choral Chameleon is an acclaimed vocal ensemble based in New York City, renowned for its diverse repertoire and innovative programming. Established in January 2008, Choral Chameleon consists of a semi professional chorus of over 50 voices and a core professional ensemble of 16 singers. The group is celebrated for blending popular music with Western art music, breaking down barriers between genres, and creating dynamic and transformative concert experiences. 

Choral Chameleon’s performances are distinguished by their inclusion of mixed media, cross-field collaborations, and audience engagement. This approach has earned them the prestigious ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming. The ensemble has commissioned and cultivated over 320 new works in its first 16 years, cementing its reputation as a champion of new choral music. 

The group’s founder, Dr. Vince Peterson, is a recipient of the Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal from Chorus America, a lifetime distinction he shares with fewer than 25 of the most influential American choral music directors. 

Notable collaborations include culinary choral work with Lish Steiling, The Gauntlet with Sxip Shirey and Coco Karol, and the world’s first choral sound bath, Washing, with Bloom Sound Collective. Choral Chameleon has also achieved several firsts, including being the inaugural vocal ensemble in residence at National Sawdust in Brooklyn and hosting the first Choral Music Rave Dance Party at Irondale Center for the Arts. 

Central to Choral Chameleon’s mission is a commitment to the longevity and evolution of the choral art form. The ensemble has established an internationally recognized teaching institute for composers and conductors, which convenes semi-annually in New York City and has welcomed over 150 students from five continents. This institute also offers a multi-year Music Directing Fellowship Program for early-career choral conductors, provided free of charge. 

Choral Chameleon’s recent highlights include the 2019 release of Eri Yamamoto’s Goshu Ondo Suite, the innovative concert series Bigger Than My Body, and the 2022 premiere of Ed Thompson’s Step Into The Night. The ensemble also launched the immersive choral rave dance party, Bigger Than My Song, and continues to be featured on the PARMA Recordings’ Navona Record label. 

Upcoming projects include a collaboration with the new music ensemble Contemporaneous for the Fall 2024 premiere of Zachary Ritter’s Heaps, and a 2025 collaboration with jazz pianist and composer Eri Yamamoto on a new double-scat concerto. This follows their previous work on the 2019 album Goshu Ondo, which was praised by Downbeat Magazine. 

Choral Chameleon’s educational outreach initiative has significantly impacted high school and college students. The highlight of this program is the annual Institute for composers and conductors, featuring a world-class faculty including multi-GRAMMY® award winners Vance George and Matthew Oltman, along with other leading figures in modern choral music. The Institute offers a Fellowship Program for early career composers, a Winter Institute for conducting students, and a Summer Institute for composition students. These programs provide intensive training and performance opportunities, culminating in final concerts featuring world premieres of works created during the sessions. 

Praised by TimeOut New York as a “shape-shifting” ensemble and acclaimed in Downbeat Magazine, Choral Chameleon continues to be a significant force in the classical music industry. Through its diverse programming, community engagement, and educational initiatives, Choral Chameleon fosters a vibrant, inclusive, and forward-thinking musical community in New York City.

From Examier.com: “Constructing a chamber chorus out of singers with diverse backgrounds can incur significant risk if not committed carefully. Choral blend is fragile enough when all singers are on the same stylistic page, sharing the same lexicon and semiotics. Incompatible personalities alone can demolish any sense of ensemble. It is therefore a great credit to the musicians of Choral Chameleon and especially their director, Vince Peterson, that the group can so superbly and aptly tackle new works of varying aesthetic proclivities, perform each idiomatically, and yet not compromise its particular sound.” 

Choral Chameleon was founded in 2008 by Peterson in order to showcase his interests both in the contemporary a cappella choral classical repertoire and in pop and music theater, and in the wealth of singers available in New York who are not only fluent in popular stylings, but also possess first-class musicianship. The voices that currently comprise the ensemble hail from the operatic, choral, Broadway, and pop scenes, and brilliantly not only avoid internal competition, but do impeccable work informing one another, through sound and phrasing, how to address their specialties.”