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An enthusiastic group of amateur singers met in the music room of the Riverdale Country School in response to a notice that the Riverdale School of Music was planning to sponsor a choral ensemble open to members of the community. That meeting, in October of 1964, led to the first concert the following February at the Riverdale Neighborhood School of the newly-formed Riverdale Choral Society under the direction of Theodore Ashizawa. The performance included Randall Thompson’s “Alleluia” and Mozart’s “Gloria in Excelsis.” A few months later the Society joined with a Brooklyn chorus and the Brooklyn Community Symphony in a performance of Schubert’s Mass in G.

At the end of the first season, Mr. Ashizawa’s career led him to California. The Riverdale School of Music director, Robert Rudie, added to the school’s staff James Cullen, a choral and instrumental conductor and singer in Philadelphia and New York. A graduate of Temple University, where he was a student of, and later assistant to famed “Singing City” director Elaine Brown, Cullen was readily granted the post of successor to Ashizawa.

Under Cullen’s leadership the Society grew in size and skill. The first holiday concert in December 1965 began a schedule of performances which has included annual Spring and Fall concerts at Wave Hill, the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, Donnell Library, Avery Fisher Hall, Kean College of New Jersey, St. Raymond’s Church in the Bronx, the New York Historical Society (broadcast live on WFUV-FM), Rockefeller Center during the 1968 Easter Parade, and, in 1984, an appearance on the CBS-TV evening news.

In October 1970 the singers gathered in beautiful rural surroundings for the first of a series of annual residential rehearsal weekends combining, in a congenial atmosphere, intense rehearsals and great fun for members and their families, a tradition which has endured to this day. Highlighting that year was a performance with orchestra of Fauré’s Requiem in memory of President Kennedy and others who died violently in support of their beliefs.

Service to the community has enriched the life of RCS in such events as the opening of the Riverdale-Yonkers Ethical Culture Meeting House, the 100th anniversary gala of the Riverdale Neighborhood House, and several United Nations Day celebrations, including one presided over by UN leader U Thant.

A most important facet of the Society’s community service is its regular performance for those who cannot come to hear music in concert halls. Nursing homes and homes for the aged have been the setting for programs which have featured, in addition to the choral repertoire, solo performances of folk music, art-songs, operatic arias, and show tunes by Society members.

In the summer of 1984 invited members of Professor Cullen’s various choral ensembles were combined to form the Kean-Riverdale Singers to perform a cultural good-will concert tour of Yugoslavia. In the summer of 1989 RCS singers joined conductor Cullen for a similar concert tour of Spain and Portugal, performing Fauré’s Requiem with chamber orchestra. On both tours, concert halls, ancient churches, and town squares were the settings for highly successful concerts welcomed enthusiastically by thousands of listeners.

At the end of the 1990-91 season, James Cullen’s retirement to Cape May, New Jersey, ended his remarkable tenure as conductor of RCS. Friendships, however, endured and several RCS members continued to sing under Cullen’s direction in New Jersey.

Finding a worthy successor to Jim Cullen required an extensive search which led to a series of auditions during the summer of 1991. The culmination of this process was the hiring of the Society’s prodigiously gifted and dynamic young director, David Crone. Mr. Crone immediately put his stamp on RCS with his inspired direction of Beethoven’s “Hallelujah” from The Mount of Olives and “Elegischer Gesang,” and Schubert’s Mass in G and Miriam’s Song of Triumph, performed along with holiday classics at the College of Mount St. Vincent and Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter auditorium. For the first time we also performed at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx in a special concert for the Garden’s “Bronx Green-Up” community outreach personnel. In the spring the group sang Brahms’s Neues Liebeslieder Wältzer as well as “A Garden,” an exciting recent work by New York composer Jonathan Elliott.

Shortly after Mimi S. Daitz became the music director of RCS in September 1997 she instituted a sight-reading workshop, held prior to each rehearsal, for a small group of RCS members. The group worked on the rudiments of music notation, rhythmic coordination, and melodic reading--skills she had taught during her many years in the Music Department of City College. (See information on Music Director and Accompanist.) Daitz usually organizes concert programs so that one semester we perform standard works of the choral repertoire and the following semester less familiar pieces. An archival list of all major concert programs is part of this web site. It currently covers 2004 to 1997 and is gradually moving back to the early concerts. See Concert Programs.

In recent years RCS has twice been invited to sing with large orchestras. In May 2002 we sang Beethoven’s Mass in C with the Bronx Symphony Orchestra. The partnership worked so well that we did the Mozart Requiem with them in May 2004. During the intervening Spring we performed the Brahms Requiem with the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble.

Community activities have included singing at the annual Riverdale Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, the Holiday Lights Festival at the Bronx Zoo, and a School District 10 choral concert. Further afield, RCS traveled to Havana for five days in May 2001 for the International Choral Festival de Cuba, a memorable trip in musical and human terms. We performed in a synagogue on Friday night, a parish church on Sunday morning, a joint concert with Cuban and American choruses in the Basilica de San Francisco Saturday evening, and the Gran Teatro for the final concert of the Festival on Sunday night. In June/July 2004 we traveled to northern Europe, visiting Helsinki, Tallinn, and St. Petersburg. The highlight of the trip was singing with 20,000 choristers in the Estonian United Choral Festival.

Less spectacular but very important to our continuing viability is the work of our officers and committee chairs. Mundane efforts such as revising our By-Laws, working out the calendar for each year, keeping attendance records, publicising our concerts, recruiting new members, and raising funds to help cover the many costs of running a performing arts volunteer organization are all accomplished without any professional staff. We have been particularly successful in obtaining technology grants, which have paid for our computers, electronic keyboard, recording equipment, and consultants for our web site. The most recent grant will contribute towards the cost of commissioning a composition to celebrate our 40th anniversary during the 2004-2005 season.