Yale Schola Cantorum is a chamber choir that performs sacred music from the sixteenth century to the present day in concert settings and choral services around the world. It is sponsored by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and conducted by David Hill; Masaaki Suzuki is Principal Guest Conductor. Open by audition to students from all departments and professional schools across Yale University, the choir has a special interest in historically informed performance practice, often in collaboration with instrumentalists from Juilliard415.

Schola was founded in 2003 by Simon Carrington. In recent years, the choir has also sung under the direction of internationally renowned conductors Matthew Halls, Simon Halsey, Paul Hillier, Stephen Layton, Sir Neville Marriner, Nicholas McGegan, James O’Donnell, Stefan Parkman, Krzysztof Penderecki, Helmuth Rilling and Dale Warland. In addition to performing regularly in New Haven and New York, the ensemble records and tours nationally and internationally. Schola’s 2018 recording on the Hyperion label featuring Palestrina’s Missa Confitebor tibi Domine has garnered enthusiastic reviews. A live recording of Heinrich Biber’s 1693 Vesperae longiores ac breviores with Robert Mealy and Yale Collegium Musicum received international acclaim from the early music press, as have subsequent recordings of J S Bach’s rarely heard 1725 version of the St John Passion and Antonio Bertali’s Missa Resurrectionis. A recording on the Naxos label of Mendelssohn and Bach Magnificats was released in 2009, and recent years have seen the release of two albums by Delos Records. Schola Cantorum’s most recent releases on Hyperion include a chamber version of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Schütz’s The Christmas story, and New England Choirworks. On tour Schola Cantorum has given performances in England, Hungary, France, China, South Korea, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Singapore, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, India and Spain.

Members of the Yale Voxtet are current students of Professor James Taylor at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale School of Music, where they are candidates for graduate degrees in voice. The select group of singers specializes in oratorio, early music and art song. In addition to performing a variety of chamber music programmes each year, the group sings, tours and records as part of the Yale Schola Cantorum.

The Yale Institute of Sacred Music is an interdisciplinary graduate centre dedicated to the study and practice of sacred music, worship and the arts. Institute students receive rigorous training for careers in performance, church music, pastoral ministry, the academy and much more.

The Institute sponsors several choruses, including the Yale Camerata and Yale Schola Cantorum, and as a major arts presenter in New Haven it offers a full schedule of concerts, art exhibitions, literary readings, lectures, conferences and multimedia events during the year.