CONSTELLATION CHOR* is a vocal performance collective comprising composers, singers, dancers and actors founded and directed by Marisa Michelson. 

The ensemble practices and performs and seeks change and seeks beauty and seeks radical aliveness and full expression and individual/collectice transformation.

The ensemble performs internationally and in New York City, and has expanded organically into the NYC new music community, making their Lincoln Center debut premiering Ashley Fure’s Filament with the New York Philharmonic and Jaap van Zweden in September 2018, and making their Kitchen debut premiering Sarah Hennies’ piece with Claire Chase in March 2019. Since 2016, Constellation Chor has been in residence at the historic Judson Memorial Church, engaging at the intersection of singing, movement, deep listening and music-theatre. They perform interdisciplinary pieces composed by Michelson, as well as collaborating with other composers, choreographers, directors, and mindfulness practitioners. They are currently also in residence at Spectrum in Brooklyn, where they perform monthly.

In 2019 the Chor performed monthly in residence at Spectrum in NYC. 

In 2020, the Chor joined Maria Popova and Paola Prestini at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, BK, to perform Prestini’s composition Tree of 40 Fruit as a ritual-celebration of the planting of a marvelous tree. That piece will be on Prestini’s upcoming album, Con Alma, out December 2020.

Awards and Residencies: 2020 Pioneer Works; 2020 Modern Accord Depot Residency; 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts; 2018 inaugural Eric Salzman Award for New Music Theatre; 2017 Creative Engagement Award (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council).

Additional projects include: Michelson’s Desire|Divinity Project (Director Ethan Heard; Choreographer: Emma Jaster) developed with Heartbeat Opera, winner of the Salzman Award for Music-Theatre, and supported by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; improvised site-specific pieces with Women Between Arts, Crowded Outlet, Alchemical Theatre, Harpa Opera Center in Reykjavik, Iceland. 

Constellation Chor’s internationally and vocally diverse array of talent hails from Greece, Israel, Austria, Portugal, Hungary, Korea, and the US, and has been seen on stages from New York to Dubai and BAM to Broadway. Ensemble members include Nikko Benson, Chanan Ben Simon, Maya Carney, Tamrin Goldberg, Marisa Michelson, Luisa Muhr, Raphael Sacks, Heath Saunders, Shawn Shafner, Kalliope Siamidou, Miriam Parker, Sarah Beth Pfeifer.   

CONSTELLATION CHOR IS ALSO 

sacred meeting space 

spirit affirming

professional

playful and childlike

sublingual | primordial

embodied

an experiment in Group Consciousness

a space to grow as an artist 

a place to connect 

to challenge ourselves 

and practice commitment 

and sing

and move

and be mindful

and try new things

we are highly sensitive Beings

we are capable of Great Strength

we are Spirits

we are Stardust

we are Bodies 

we are Human

*Chor from the Latin Cor meaning: heart, soul, mind; and the Greek Khoros meaning: to dance in a circle, chor is also meant to evoke the core, the center and the essence. Chor is in “chorus” and “choreography.” The gestures and impulses we are working with might become voice or they might become movement.