Richard Coffey to Step Down as CONCORA Director

After a distinguished four-decade tenure, Richard Coffey, who founded CONCORA (Connecticut Choral Artists) as the region’s first all-professional choir in 1974, will step down from the post of Artistic Director at the conclusion of the 2013-2014 season. CONCORA’s Board of Directors will launch a national search for CONCORA’s next Artistic Director, with the expectation that Mr. Coffey’s successor will be in place to lead the ensemble for the 2015-2016 season. 

“My decision to step down is made at a time when, thanks to the strength and dedication of CONCORA’s staff and Board of Directors, the organization is in good financial health and thriving under strong leadership,” said Mr. Coffey. “My departure is one of choice that permits CONCORA, as it celebrates its fortieth season, to do so with an eye to new artistic leadership.”

“With appreciation, gratitude, admiration, and not a little sadness, we accept Maestro Coffey’s decision to step down from the post he has held with distinction for so long,” said Sarah Hager Johnston, President of CONCORA’s Board of Directors and a CONCORA singer. “Over four decades, he has brought CONCORA to a pinnacle of artistic excellence, the culmination of forty years of consistently superb leadership."

A search committee will be named in April. Final candidates for the post of Artistic Director will conduct CONCORA in public concerts during the first part of the 2014-2015 season, and distinguished guest conductors will lead the ensemble in the latter half of that season. 

With the support of South Church, New Britain, Richard Coffey founded the South Church Choral Society, as CONCORA was then known, in 1974, and the ensemble quickly gained a reputation as the region’s premier vocal ensemble. 

Under Mr. Coffey’s leadership, CONCORA has established important educational and outreach programs that offer memorable, life-changing musical experiences to thousands of singers from across the region, including many from Farmington High School. CONCORA-to-Go, a professional vocal quartet, takes choral music into the public schools, especially to communities where music programs are under-supported. The Extraordinary Concert Series, established in 1993, brings together select high school and college choirs to rehearse and perform with CONCORA’s professional singers.  

To honor Mr. Coffey’s legacy, CONCORA’s Board of Directors will establish, in the fall of 2013, the Connecticut Choral Artists Endowment Fund in Honor of Richard M. Coffey, to support the commissioning of new choral works, and to underwrite live performances and recordings of contemporary classical masterworks.

 About Richard Coffey: Richard Coffey, Artistic Director of CONCORA, is one of New England’s principal choral conductors. He founded CONCORA, Connecticut Choral Artists, as a professional vocal ensemble in 1974. Mr. Coffey is Minister of Music at South Church in New Britain, where he conducts a choir of professional and amateur singers and serves as Artistic Director of its Music Series, which annually presents concerts by visiting artists. He is also Music Director of the Hartford Chorale, the region’s principal symphonic chorus.

In frequent demand as a chorusmaster, Mr. Coffey has prepared choruses for many orchestras and festivals including the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra New England, the Springfield Symphony, the New Britain Symphony, the Waterbury Symphony, the Bard Music Festival, and the Harkness Summer Music Festival. For five seasons, Mr. Coffey was chorusmaster of the Connecticut Opera Association. 

Mr. Coffey has served as a Visiting Artist in Choral Music at the Hartt School, University of Hartford, where he conducted the Hartt Chamber Singers and taught graduate seminars in choral literature. He has served on the faculties of SummerTerm at Central Connecticut State University, the President’s College of the University of Hartford, the Colby Church Music Institute in Waterville, Maine, and the University of Connecticut at Storrs.

Mr. Coffey has served on the boards of directors of the New Britain Symphony, the Hartford Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and Chorus America, the national choral service organization based in Washington, D.C. He also serves regionally as adjudicator and clinician for keyboard and choral competitions and festivals. He served for five years on a panel of advisors to the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. Mr. Coffey often makes presentations at regional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, and the American Guild of Organists, and writes reviews for Choral Journal.

Mr. Coffey holds degrees in music from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the School of Sacred Music of New York’s Union Theological Seminary. He was awarded France’s “premier prix” in organ performance following studies with organist Marie–Claire Alain.

In 1992 Mr. Coffey was named Choral Director of the Year by the Connecticut Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. In 2007 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Greater New Britain Arts Alliance and a Major Achievement Award by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, in recognition of outstanding and inspiring artistic leadership. Mr. Coffey was the 2009 recipient of the Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award, presented annually by Choral Arts New England to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to choral singing and its culture within New England.

Submitted by CONCORA.