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During these years, group members bought their own scores, rehearsed on Monday nights in one of the Quonset
huts on what is now the Pueblo Community College campus, and performed concerts in the sanctuary of either
Ascension Episcopal Church or First United Methodist Church. The accompanist during Meyers’ and Muller’s years
as director was well known church musician Janet Hall.
In 1969, with the arrival of new symphony conductor Gerhard Track, a native of Vienna, Austria, and former
member and later director of the Vienna Boys’ Choir, the chorale added symphony to its name, grew in size to one
hundred members, and broadened its scope. Under Track’s direction, the two groups collaborated on season
concerts for the next seventeen years, presenting major works such as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the Verdi
Requiem; staged musicals, including The Merry Widow, The Student Prince, and Fiddler on the Roof; and concert
and staged versions of operas: The Magic Flute, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Track’s Minnequa, composed to
commemorate the Colorado Centennial. The Christmas programs, now accompanied by the orchestra or the
Pueblo Youth Symphony, became more elaborate, sometimes featuring staged musical productions, such as Amahl
and the Night Visitors and Track’s Reindeer Surprise and The Little Match Girl with librettos written by chorale
member and soloist Roberta Arwood. The group performed joint concerts with the Air Force Academy Cadet Choir
and choirs from Denver and the Midwest. The chorale also sponsored concerts that were presented by visiting
German and Austrian choirs.
From members of the larger symphony chorale, Track chose a small chamber choir that entertained at various civic
functions and made six tours. The two U.S. tours were to Colorado’s Western Slope and to the Midwest, including
concerts in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, and Chicago.
During four tours in Germany and Austria, the chorale concertized and participated in church services and
international music festivals for three or four weeks. The group performed in smaller German towns at the
invitation of local singing societies and in venues in Germany that included the Cologne Cathedral, the peace
monument at the Remagen Bridge, and the casino band shell in Baden-Baden. In Vienna, Austria, the chorale
performed in several locations, including St. Stephan’s Cathedral, the Sofien Saal, and City Hall in Vienna. The
group also recorded programs on Austrian National Radio in Salzburg, Vienna, and Neuberg. Because of Pueblo’s
Mozart Festival, a tradition Track initiated, the mayor of Salzburg entertained the chamber choir at a reception in
the City Hall during each tour, giving everyone a small Salzburg angel stick- pin as a memento of the occasion.
The chorale’s final activity with Gerhard Track in May of 1986 was a trip to New York City to join six other choirs
from the U.S. and Canada to present the Verdi Requiem in Avery Fisher Hall and to perform mini-concerts for each
other in St. Barnabas Church. The morning following the final festivities, the Tracks flew to their native Vienna,
where Gerhard went on to become the head of the Vienna Music Academy system of schools and direct other
choirs and orchestras.
Chorale members returned home to begin the process of forming the Pueblo Choral Society, a self-governing
non-profit organization that supports itself by paying annual dues, selling program advertising, and seeking concert
sponsors to defray the costs of director’s and accompanist’s honoraria, guest artists’ fees, music purchases, and
various other expenses.
Not wanting to give up the variety of activities the chorale had enjoyed under Gerhard Track, the founding
members of the Pueblo Choral Society created a three-concert season and continued the traditions of presenting a
Christmas concert, as well as participating in Pueblo’s Christmas Posada and a Memorial Day service at a local
cemetery.
The chorale’s participation in the Verdi performance in New York City led the Choral Society to its first director,
Aram Philibosian, whose daughter Nicole was soprano soloist for the Avery Fisher Hall concert. Her mention of her
parents’ recent move to Beulah and Aram’s choral directing background was one of those very welcome
serendipitous moments. The search for an accompanist was simple. The very gifted Juanita DeHeart, pianist and
organist with the symphony, consented to play for the Choral Society too.
Following Aram Philibosian, the Choral Society’s former directors were Brian Leatherman (1989-1996), Charles
Merritt (1996-2000), and Joseph Brachmann (2000-2001). The February 2003 concert featured Leatherman,
Merritt, and Brachmann as guest conductors, who each directed three pieces from the repertoire that was sung
during their tenure with the chorale. The guest artists for that concert, Nicole Philibosian and Shelley Waite,
daughters of Aram Philibosian, sang in honor of their father's period in the Choral Society's history and his
invaluable contributions in the group's early years.
During nineteen seasons as the Pueblo Choral Society, the chorale has had a variety of experiences not available
during the early days of the Pueblo Chorale. The Choral Society received a grant from the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation to make a short tour, performing concerts in Alamosa and Durango. Another summer the group sang
concerts in Canon City and Westcliffe one weekend, then traveled to Breckenridge the next Saturday to present the
same program in the music tent there. One summer Choral Society members were invited to join the Colorado
Springs Symphony and Symphony Chorale to give performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Colorado
Springs and Vail, and the next summer chorale members joined the groups again to present Carmina Burana in
Colorado Springs and Vail and in Pueblo on the Summer Music Fest.
The Choral Society has also invited many area groups as guest artists, including two exceptional choirs: the Vocal
Arts Ensemble of Colorado Springs and Ars Nova of the Boulder-Denver area. With another choir, the Evergreen
Chorale, the chorale gave joint performances here and in Evergreen in November of 1991. Another year The Little
London Winds of Colorado Springs and the chorale performed here in Pueblo, and the following weekend the two
groups performed the same program in Colorado Springs.
Collaboration with local groups has greatly enhanced season programs. The Arts Center dance troupe added
glamour and visual beauty to presentations of Carmina Burana in 1991 and again in 1995, and orchestra members,
hired to accompany the chorale on various programs over the years, continue to lend an added dimension. In April
of 2001, the Veronika String Quartet, Artists in Residence at the university, appeared as guest artists, then
accompanied the chorale on several pieces.
Since 1990 the Choral Society has been the guest artist on four Pueblo Symphony concerts, performing the
Beethoven Ninth Symphony and a program of opera choruses with Conductor Jacob Chi, and the Beethoven Ninth
once again with Conductor Marcia La Rue. Most recently, the chorale performed Handel’s Messiah as the
symphony’s guest artists in December of 2002, with current chorale director, Dr. Mark Hudson, as guest conductor
for the concert.
Because one of the Choral Society’s goals is to promote choral music, February or March concerts have often had
as guest artists one of the local high school choirs. One year the chorale featured the Middle School All-City Choir,
and another season, the group invited a choir from each of the Pueblo area high schools to perform on the
February program. The annual Christmas concert has included as guest artists the Pueblo Children’s Chorale every
year since its inception.
With the encouragement of Pueblo’s youth, we members of the Pueblo Choral Society hope to nurture a love of the
choral tradition and ensure the chorale’s future.