Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art

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.

Past Awardees

2023 Robert Geary
2022 Grant Gershon
2021Harry Christophers
2020Kent Tritle
2019Brad Wells
2018Ragnar Bohlin
2017Donald Nally
2016Robert De Cormier
2015Craig Hella Johnson
2014Jon Washburn
2013Christopher Bell
2012Duain Wolfe
2011Robert Porco
2010Robert L. Simpson
2009Alan Harler
2008John Alexander
2007Joseph Jennings
2006American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
2005Libby Larsen
2004Mary Lyons Earl Rivers
2003Philip Brunelle
2002Mary Deissler
2001Marshall A. Rutter
2000Paul Salamunovich
1999Albert McNeil
1998Vance George
1997Richard Westenburg
1996Louis Botto
1995Dale Warland
1994Alice Parker
1993Dominick Argento
1992Paul Hill
1991Margaret Hawkins & R. Murray Schafer
1990Ned Rorem
1989Alfred Mann
1988Doralene Davis
1987Janice Kestler & Robert Page
1986Michael Korn
1985Lukas Foss & Walter Gould
1984Todd Duncan & Gregg Smith
1983Robert Shaw
1982Jester Hairston
1981Roger Wagner
1980Margaret Hillis & Hugh Ross
1979Fred Waring
1978Thomas Pyle