Thacher’s music program invites all students, from the neophyte to the experienced, to join in the delight of making joyful sounds, individually or collectively, in small groups and large.

The Thacher Chorus is open to all students who enjoy singing. Students learn how to sing on pitch, to blend with a group, and to develop their listening ear to sing effectively in an ensemble. The Chorus performs pieces from a variety of musical periods, including Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern, and always sings at least one piece in language other than English, whether it’s Latin, German, Spanish, Italian, or even Portuguese. In class, the focus is on group vocal techniques, learning how to breathe and blend sound and to move air properly to sustain notes. Throughout this course, students routinely remind themselves that singing is a physical act, requiring the fine-tuning of the whole body. Students in the Chorus earn course credit and meet five days a week during the academic day.

The Thacher Chamber Singers is a small ensemble, composed of between 12 to 16 singers, created through a selective audition process. Students perform music a cappella, focusing on pieces from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern periods, often advanced arrangements, taking on the work of Brahms, Schumann and Mendelssohn and challenging themselves as vocalists to find precision even in songs written in another language. Within this performance group, students learn to become sensitive to subtlety, aiming to make each piece an art. Like Chorus, Chamber Singers is an academic course that meets all days of the school week.

Both The Chorus and The Chamber Singers undertake a full year of performances, starting with the Family Weekend concert in October, continuing with the Holiday Concert in December, and, second semester, with a Grandparents’ Day concert as well as a Big Gymkhana Family Weekend and final Spring Concert. They also travel to at least one music festival annually, where they have repeatedly received numerous “superior” and “excellent” ratings from adjudicators. Small performances throughout the year at school Assemblies, local retirement homes, and chapel services round out the schedule.

As with instrumental music, students too many to count have created informal groups throughout the years, many even recording their own CDs. These ensembles have ranged from single-sex to mixed gender, to faculty and students singing together, in musical styles spanning all genres from Renaissance through do-wop and folk to hip-hop.