Inside the Christmas Concert: How 360 Voices Find One Sound

When the Choir sings, you don’t hear three hundred and sixty voices. You hear one — full and unguarded, but still one.

That sound is rehearsed. It begins each season with a chord-by-chord listening test: each section sings together, then with the section above, then with the one below. Singers learn whose voices to lean on for pitch, whose for color, whose for breath.

By the time the Christmas concert opens, the Choir has practiced not just the music but the act of fitting together — of choosing to make one sound rather than four hundred.