Yale Camerata is a seventy-voice vocal ensemble whose members are Yale graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, staff, and experienced singers from the New Haven community. Conducted by Dr. Felicia Barber, the ensemble performs a widely varied spectrum of sacred choral literature, with a special commitment to choral music of our time. The Camerata was founded by Marguerite L. Brooks in 1985.

The Camerata has collaborated with Yale Schola Cantorum, Yale Glee Club, Yale Philharmonia, Yale Symphony, Yale Band, Yale Chamber Players, Yale Collegium Musicum, the New Haven Chorale, and the symphony orchestras of Hartford, New Haven, and Norwalk. The ensemble has also performed for Yale Music Spectrum and New Music New Haven. The chamber chorus of the Camerata is a subset of the larger chorus and performs more specialized repertoire.

The Camerata has been heard on Connecticut Public Radio and national broadcasts of National Public Radio’s program Performance Today. Guest conductors have included Marin Alsop, Simon Carrington, Matthew Halls, David Hill, Nicholas McGegan, Erwin Ortner, Stefan Parkman, Grete Pedersen, Krzysztof Penderecki, Helmuth Rilling, Jaap Schröder, Robert Shaw, and Dale Warland.

The Institute of Sacred Music has commissioned works for Camerata by Martin Bresnick, Daniel Kellogg, Aaron J. Kernis, Robert Kyr, Tawnie Olson, Stephen Paulus, Daniel Pinkham, Robert Sirota, Julia Wolfe, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, among others. The chorus has sung premiere performances of works by many other composers, including Kathryn Alexander and Francine Trester.

André J. Thomas, Interim Conductor, 2020-2022

Dr. André J. Thomas joined the faculties of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale School of Music in 2020 and led the Camerata in a pandemic-limited online concert season. He continued at Yale for the 2021–2022 academic year, conducting  that season’s concerts in person. While at Yale Dr. Thomas also instructed graduate conducting students.

Dr. Thomas had a distinguished career at Florida State University, where he retired as the Owen F. Sellers Professor of Music, Director of Choral Activities, and professor of Choral Music Education. He continues to be a choral adjudicator, clinician, and director throughout North America, Europe, Asia, New Zealand, Australia, and Africa. His domestic and international conducting credits are extensive, including leading convention choirs for the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and the World Youth Choir; and orchestras ranging from the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (England) to China’s People’s Liberation Orchestra. He recently retired as artistic director of the Tallahassee Community Chorus.

Dr. Thomas is widely recognized for his dedication to, and accomplishments in, the choral arts. In 2011, the African Diaspora Sacred Music and Musicians Program honored him as a Living Legend. In the same year, Chorus America presented Dr. Thomas with its Distinguished Service Award. In March of 2017 ACDA presented Thomas with its highest honor, The Robert Shaw Award, and in November of 2017 NCCO (National Collegiate Choral Organization) presented Thomas with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In January 2019 he was inducted into the Florida Music Educator’s Hall of Fame.  He is a past president of the Florida ACDA and the past president of the Southern Division of ACDA, and the current Vice President of National ACDA and the artistic Chairman of the 2021 National Convention. 

Marguerite L. Brooks, Emeritus Conductor, 1985-2020

The Camerata was founded by Marguerite L. Brooks in 1985. Brooks served for thirty-five years as chair of the conducting program at the Yale School of Music and director of choral music at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. As founding conductor of the Yale Camerata, one of Yale’s first campus/city arts collaborations, Brooks led hundreds of musical performances featuring some of the most innovative and wide-ranging programming in the field. She has long been a champion of new music by composers of a diverse array of gender, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. The Camerata and its chamber chorus have performed music from the middle ages to the present day, and the catalogue of composers ranges from Albinoni to Argento, from Palestrina to Pärt–along with Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Tawnie Olson, Aaron Jay Kernis, Caroline Shaw, Robert Kyr, Reena Esmail, and many more.

Brooks’s former students occupy positions of musical leadership at major churches and cathedrals around the world and in leading academic institutions. Among her students are the founding conductors of Grammy-nominated choirs Conspirare, Roomful of Teeth, and Seraphic Fire. Brooks has been active as a guest conductor, teacher, and clinician. She was a juror for the Eric Ericson conducting competition in Sweden, and has conducted, given master classes, taught, and adjudicated in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. She holds degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Temple University, and has served on the faculties of Smith and Amherst Colleges and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Brooks was cited by the Yale School of Music for cultural leadership in music, and has received alumni awards for distinguished work in her field from both Mount Holyoke College and Temple University. Presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Connecticut chapter of the American Choral Directors Association in 2016 and by Choral Arts New England in 2019, Brooks is proud to have been honored as a Woman in History by the Barnard School. In 2020 Brooks received the Helen Kemp Award for Lifetime Commitment to Excellence in Choral Music from the Eastern Region ACDA. The National Collegiate Choral Organization, of which Brooks is a charter member and an honorary life member, celebrated her retirement in 2020 by initiating the Marguerite L. Brooks Commissioning Fund for New Choral Music.