Vast majority of nation’s choruses are church choirs

A new study of choruses estimates that there are 250,000 choruses nationwide and the vast majority of them — 200,000 — are church choirs.
   
The research by Chorus America, the Washington-based service organization for North American choruses, included a poll of 1,000 adults that found that one or more adults in 15.6 percent of households performed in a chorus in public in the previous year.
   
“The study found that far more people participate in choral singing than in any other performing art,” states the executive summary of “America’s Performing Art: A Study of Choruses, Choral Singers and Their Impact.”
   
Researchers found that choral singers are often more involved in their communities than the average American.
Seventy-six percent of choristers say they are involved in other volunteer activities. That percentage is far higher than the 44 percent of adults that Independent Sector found in a 2001 study had served as organization volunteers.
   
Sixty-three percent of chorus members reported charitable giving to other arts organizations, compared with 18.8 percent of American households reported by Independent Sector.
   
Chorus America researchers found that 76 percent of choral singers are members of a religious institution, compared to a finding in a Social Capital Benchmark survey that 65 percent of Americans belong to a church or synagogue.
   
Comments from the choristers sometimes linked their musical interests to religion and spirituality.
   
“These people whom I love dearly are politically or religiously very different from me,” one said of fellow singers.
   
The 30-page report concluded: “In virtually every focus group, somebody described choral singing as spiritually uplifting.”
   
Researchers determined that the 250,000 nationwide choruses include 200,000 church choirs, 38,000 school choruses and 12,000 professional and community choruses.
   
Other findings:
   
–About three-quarters of choristers read newspapers, compared to about one-third of the adult general population.
   
–About 42 percent of chorus members say they have made a contribution to a political candidate or party, much higher than percentages in national studies of American political contributions. (RNS)