OUR STORY
OUR MISSION
Camerata Baltimore is formed to promote the choral arts to the public through performance, education, and public outreach, with an emphasis on promoting the same to and for people of color as an underserved community in the choral arts.
HISTORY OF
Founded in 2014, by artistic director James Mayo III, Camerata Baltimore has grown from a small passion project into one of Baltimore’s must-watch ensembles with a stable of talented members and a devoted following.
Camerata Baltimore’s inaugural concert took place on December 5th, 2014 at Catonsville Baptist Church in Catonsville, MD. The program included selections from Handel’s Messiah - along with other familiar Christmas favorites. This concert has since become an annual tradition, ringing in the holidays and warming hearts each December.
Since 2016 the ensemble has taken a yearly tour of the east coast United States culminating in a concert at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Mount Hermon, MA to celebrate the legacy of and memorialize the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In April 2018, Camerata Baltimore premiered Jubilee, a cantata composed by Dr. Charles Garner, professor emeritus of Southern Connecticut State University. The ensemble also premiered his arrangement of the spiritual Deep River.
In August 2020 amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Camerata Baltimore became one of the first choirs in the region to return to in-person singing. Following strict health and safety protocols the ensemble was able to safely rehearse and perform at multiple engagements including a joint concert with DC String Workshop streamed live in December of that year.
