The Illinois Wesleyan University Collegiate Choir has established a long history of excellence through its on-campus performances, annual tours, and recordings. The Collegiate Choir is composed of student musicians representing the School of Music and other areas of the University, and is dedicated to the performance of the finest sacred and secular choral music spanning six centuries and a variety of languages. Students in the choir are selected by audition and maintain a rigorous rehearsal schedule in preparation for their annual spring concert tour and other engagements throughout the year. The Choir took its first international tour in 2000 to Italy, and has since presented concerts in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia (2004), Spain (2008) and Germany (2012). The Choir will tour France in May 2016. The Choir has performed at the 2000, 2005, and 2012 Illinois Music Education Conferences, and at the 2008 and 2012 ACDA Central Division Conferences.

After a recent collaboration with the King’s Singers, countertenor David Hurley called the Collegiate Choir “one of the finest university choirs I have heard in my travels with the King’s Singers.” The Choir has also received acclaim for the “breath-taking beauty and skill of the voices, the superb repertoire, and the awesome musicality.” Programs have been called “wonderfully well-selected, versatile, interesting, and musical.” Estonian conductor Heli Jürgenson praised the choir’s “clear intonation, beautiful and sound harmony, multifarious strokes, and broad dynamic scale.” Renowned Czech conductor Jiří Kolář noted, “I was overwhelmed by the great intonation, precise rhythm, beautiful work with dynamics, and incredible stylistic interpretation of compositions from all style periods and genres.”

The Choir maintains the IWU Choral Commission Series, the oldest collegiate commission series in the United States, which in its 61-year history has added many significant works to the choral repertoire and resulted in a number of important world premieres at Illinois Wesleyan University. Since the first commission, Songs of Innocence by Earl George, in 1951, the series has featured works by composers such as Pauline Oliveros, Louise Talma, Ulysses Kay, Leo Sowerby, Jean Berger, Kenneth Gaburo, Relly Raffman, John Joubert, Geoffery Bush, Edmund Najera, Kirke Mechem, John Chorbajian, Barney Childs, William Mathias, Anthony Iannaccone, Ivan Hrušovský, Stephen Paulus, Libby Larsen, György Orbán, John Sharpley, Sydney Guillaume, and Steven Sametz. This year’s composer is Andrew Rindfleisch.