The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, a professional choir of 24 singers from all over the country, traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico this summer with TXWES faculty member, Dr. Bradley Naylor. When we sat down for an interview, we got an insight into his experience with the Desert Chorale. 

Q: What drew you to audition for the Desert Chorale? 

A: "In my final year of graduate studies in New Haven, my teacher at the time was Simon Carrington, and he was the founding member of the King Singers, actually, way back in the day. The previous summer, Simon had been a guest conductor with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. He suggested that having been a singer in his choirs when I was a student, I auditioned for the choir. He had a great experience and had conducted some great English music, which he is a specialist, and he suggested that I audition for the group. Then, the following year, the national ACDA (American Choral Directors Association) convention was held in Oklahoma City. I was going anyways because I was a graduate student in choral music. The conductor of the Desert Chorale, Joshua Habermann, had live auditions that were adjunct to the convention. I remember I showed up and sang an Italian piece, an English piece, a French piece, and a German piece, and then he had me sightread an Italian madrigal in Italian and do a lot of other things. Then he called all my references, and then I was lucky enough to get a call and sing in the Chorale the next summer. That was my first time, and that was in 2009, and I've been singing most seasons ever since. I took a few summers off when our kids were both really little. But these days, I sing both in the summer season, which is about three and a half weeks long and the winter season, which is a little more than two weeks in December.” 

Q: Were there any pieces from your program "Candlelight Carols: Glimpse of Snow and Evergreen" recently published on PBS that stuck with you or that you enjoyed more than the others? 

A: When you sing with a choir for long enough, you start to repeat some tunes, and some tunes come back as old friends. The program for this season was kind of focused on Scandinavian and Nordic music. But the middle section had a couple of well-loved tunes, and one of them was called "Rose in the Middle of Winter." That is a piece written by Bob Chilcott, who was kind of a full circle moment, also a member of the King Singers, and sang with my teacher Simon. It was a piece that I had sung maybe in the first three or four seasons that I ever sang with the Desert Chorale and kind of around the time that I was a young father. And a lot of the texts of that piece talk about the arrival of the winter season, Christmas, as being anticipation, kind of like when you're awaiting the birth of a new child. It was meaningful for me to come back to that piece; that's also a piece that I've conducted with students in the past. So, it was a nice one to visit.” 

Q: Besides Singing in the Desert Chorale, what other events were you a part of this past Christmas Season? 

A: "Before I left for Santa Fe, I got the chance to sing at Broadway Baptist Church here in Fort Worth. They have an annual Messiah sing-along. My dear friend Dennis Jewett is in his first year as the director of the choir at Broadway Baptist, and I asked him if he let me come and sing in his choir for that, and so I did. That was a really joyful way to kind of spring me into the winter music season." 

Q: How would you say performing in an ensemble like the Desert Chorale has benefited you as a choir director? 

A: “I think two significant ways are related to each other. One is that it keeps my ears listening to a really high-quality choral sound, so I know what I want my choirs to sound like. The other way that it influences my own conducting is through repertoire ideas. Whether it's informally over a burrito or whether it's within the context of the concert program, I'm always learning new music, which I often then adapt and bring to choirs that I direct as well.” 

Dr. Naylor will also continue his journey with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale at the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) national convention on March 23, 2025. The Desert Chorale will be a joint concert with the Orpheus Chamber Singers where they will be bringing back a program from 2023, "The American Immigrant Experience." Dr. Naylor said, "We are bringing with us the same actor who read the poems in our original program. And so, we are excited to bring that idea and that concept to a new audience." 

You can read more about the Santa Fe Desert Chorale on their website: https://desertchorale.org/