The Musical Arts of Santa Cruz (MASC) and the Santa Cruz Chorale exist to provide enjoyment, cultural enrichment and education to the Santa Cruz county community by producing exciting, distinctive and ambitious concerts of the highest possible standards.
Our Conductor
Christian Grube, the Chorale’s Artistic Director, is emeritus professor of choral conducting at the Berlin University of Arts. His choirs are known for their exquisite sound, impeccable intonation, broad range of dynamic expression, and ability to interpret the most diverse styles. With Christian at the helm we have a golden opportunity to refine our musicianship and performance, and we are excited and honored to be working with him.
Who We Are
The Santa Cruz Chorale, a non-profit organization founded in 1983, performs a wide-ranging repertory including works from the 15th century through music of our time. It was founded and initially directed by Mary Lynn Place Badarak, Lecturer for the Department of Music at UC Santa Cruz, as a community based volunteer adult chorus, as it continues today. In addition, the Chorale has made two international tours: the first to Northern Italy and Croatia, and the second to Spain, both under the leadership of Paul Vorwerk. Additional conductors during the chorus’s evolution have included Murray Walker, the late Gene Lewis, Paul Vorwerk, and, most recently, Eduardo Mendelievich (2004-2006).
Since 2006, the chorus is led by Christian Grube and performs three full concerts per year from the choral repertoire, using the beautiful acoustics of the Sanctuary of Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz. Over its existence, the Chorale has been able to attract three of Santa Cruz’ most able accompanists, Vlada Moran, Yalenda Listmann, and Maria Ezerova.
Singers, who live throughout the greater Monterey Bay area, include graduate students, computer mavens, business people, politicians, pastors, attorneys, investigators, consultants, UCSC faculty and staff, high school and grade school teachers, physicians, engineers, and parents of small children. Although several members of the Chorale are professional musicians and some direct musical groups of their own, all volunteer their time, and most are amateurs in the original sense of that word: people who seriously pursue an art for the love of it.