Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art
From 1978 to 2023, the Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art honored individuals with a lifetime of significant contributions to the professional choral art. Awardees were Chorus America members of national stature who worked with fully professionalized choruses.
Michael Korn, one of the founders of Chorus America and its first president (1977 to 1985), received this special namesake citation in 1986. Korn was artistic director and conductor of The Philadelphia Singers, which he founded in 1972, and associate conductor and chorus master of the Opera Company of Philadelphia. In 1991, in response to Korn's untimely death at the age of 44, this citation was renamed The Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art.