What is it like to sing in a choir?
We asked Lisa Stein, a vocalist in the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, which performs with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It’s challenging. You have complicated rhythms you’re counting in your head and remembering your cues and dynamics and all the little nuances that you worked on in rehearsals.
So people around you are singing other notes and you have to hold your ground while other people are singing things that interlace with yours.
And when it locks, it’s magic.
It’s the best feeling. A very spiritual experience for me. The visceral sensation of being a part of something bigger than yourself.
Our conductor often says that at tricky parts we should just lock arms with the people around us and jump. And that’s what it feels like.
I much prefer it to solo performances because you’re in it with all the people around you. If you miss a note here or there it’s OK. But everyone is constantly influencing each other.
And then you add the orchestra and a conductor. It’s just this massive organism with a million moving parts but most of the time we all have one heartbeat.
It’s all consuming in my mind. It takes me away from everything else.
Acknowledgment
Music is a live recording from May 2023 of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Philadelphia Symphonic Choir conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Repertoire: Christus factus est and Te Deum. Composed by Anton Bruckner.
The Philadelphia Symphonic Choir formed in 2016, and appears solely with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Its roster has about 200 singers, with a smaller number — generally 40 to 90 — performing in specific concerts.
Lisa Stein, vocalist, cellist, composer, and music educator, has been singing in the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir with the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2022. She studied contemporary opera, early music, and classical South Indian music at Wesleyan University and is currently working towards her Masters in Music Education at Carnegie Mellon University.
Staff Contributors
- Development: Jasen Lo
- Design: Jasen Lo, Shani Zhang
- Reporting: Jasen Lo, Peter Dobrin
- Editing: Sam Morris, Suzette Moyer, Bedatri D.Choudhury
- Illustration: Shani Zhang
- Words: Lisa Stein
- Digital Editing: Patricia Madej
- Social Editing: Julie Zeglen
- Copy Editing: Brian Leighton
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