Jason Bishop, Director
Rhodes Singers originated in 1937 under the direction of Professor Louis Nicholas (‘34), who organized the first choral ensemble at Rhodes College in 1934. Burnet C. Tuthill, co-founder of the National Association of the Schools of Music (NSAM), formalized choral music performance with the establishment of the Rhodes Singers as the concert choir for the college. Rhodes Singers is a select, auditioned mixed choir of 50 Singers, and serves as a flagship ensemble for Rhodes College. They perform a variety of mostly small-form choral works. Rhodes Singers may be heard in many concerts locally, on tours throughout the United States, and on international tours every few years. In 2010, they performed in the Rome International Choral Festival, and performed concert tours in Italy and France. They also performed in 2011, for a special Presidents’ Day Choral Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and in concert, by adjudicated invitation, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. In recent years they have toured Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana. In 2017, the choir performed a concert tour around the New York area that featured a concert in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and culminated in a standing ovation presentation at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In summer of 2018, members performed in the Dublin Choral Festival in Ireland, and were invited for an encore performance at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and in Carnegie Hall in 2020, which had to be canceled due to Covid. They were thrilled to sing once again when they were able to perform a concert tour in Poland and the Czech Republic in May 2021, and when they returned to New York City in May 2022 for another concert tour, which included an invitation to perform once again in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.
