Our Mission

The Monadnock Chorus (MC), founded in 1959, is a non-auditioned community choir drawn from 28 towns throughout Southern New Hampshire, with singers ranging in age from young adults to those in their 90’s. All our welcome to join us!

Our mission is to offer an opportunity for our members to share their love of music with the community, and for the community at large to have access to, and learn about and enjoy, a wide variety of high-quality choral music. We present four major ticketed concerts each year in December and May in Peterborough NH, and we rehearse on Wednesday evenings.

A smaller auditioned choral ensemble, the Monadnock Chorus Chamber Singers (MCCS), prepares and performs several concerts each year in different venues throughout the Monadnock region. Our SING! Program provides free memberships for students age 12-26 to sing with us. Additionally, we periodically hold open rehearsals throughout the region as part of our regular rehearsal schedule each semester.  MCCS concerts and MC open rehearsals are free of charge. 

The Monadnock Chorus strives to provide employment to musicians from the Monadnock region and elsewhere in New Hampshire, or when needed, from Vermont and Massachusetts. Our paid artistic staff members (artistic director Morgan Bothwell and accompanist Cheryl Sharrock) are New Hampshire residents. The organization has no paid administrative staff, and is run by a volunteer Board of Directors drawn from area towns.

We appreciate the incredible generosity of all of our donors in helping us to fulfill our mission. Deriving only half of our operating budget from ticket sales and member dues, we depend on fundraising events, program ads, private donations and grants to fund our activities. Fifty-two percent of our budget is dedicated to compensating the musicians who inspire us -- who direct, accompany, and perform in our concerts with us — and the remainder to our concert rentals, logistics, scores and other business expenses.