Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia to Perform at Historic "Victory at Sea" Concert

The 152 year old Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia will join an all-star lineup at the free "Victory at Sea" concert, part of a historic celebration marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Thirty members from this renowned chorus will perform three patriotic selections alongside the U.S. Navy Band and U.S. Navy Sea Chanters. Additionally, the chorus will accompany headliner Patti LaBelle in her own arrangement of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. In a distinguished honor, Mendelssohn Chorus Artistic Director & Conductor Dominick DiOrio will be the only civilian conductor featured in this concert, leading the chorus and The Navy Band in Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus.” The concert, headlined by Philadelphia soul legend Patti LaBelle, will be broadcast nationwide on C-SPAN in the days following the event.
upcoming events
saturday, october 18 2025
VIGIL FOR LOVE
Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia - Dominick DiOrio, conductor
Dominick DiOrio and Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia open their 152nd Season with a performance of Henry Purcell's tragic opera Dido and Aeneas, featuring musicians from the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. The work is paired with DiOrio's major new work in collaboration with poet Kyle Conner, Vigil for Love, featuring pianist Ting Ting Wong.
sunday, october 19 2025
Our Wildest Imagining @ St. Paul's Chestnut Hill
The Choir of St. Paul's & Dr. Andrew Kotylo
The Choir of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia (The Rev. Eric P. Hungerford, Rector) and Dr. Andrew Kotylo, Director of Music and Organist, present the consortium world premiere of Our Wildest Imagining, a new work to honor the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson, as part of their morning service.
sunday, october 19 2025
CREDO Project Premieres
The CREDO Project premieres continue in Graz, Austria, including my final movement: "Et Vitam Venturi" More information here.
about dominick

Recognized with The American Prizes in both Choral Composition (2014) and Choral Performance (2019, with NOTUS), Dominick DiOrio is an energetic conductor and composer who has won widespread acclaim for his contributions to American music. He is professor of music and chair of the department in choral conducting at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he joined the faculty in 2012, and where he serves as director of NOTUS.
DiOrio also serves as the fourteenth artistic director and conductor of the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, where he regularly prepares the chorus to sing with The Philadelphia Orchestra, including a "near ideal" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) performance of Carmina burana in March 2024 with conductor Fabio Luisi. DiOrio’s combined role as a composer-conductor has led to many unique opportunities and collaborations with some of the most important artists and icons of our time, including novelist Richard Powers, the Right Reverend Bishop Gene Robinson, and actor William Shatner.
DiOrio’s original music has been hailed for its keenly intelligent, evocative style, which shows “a tour de force of inventive thinking and unique colour” (Gramophone). His over 70 published works have appeared at major venues around the world including the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall, as well as internationally.
He composes for musicians of all ages and experiences and has completed over 70 commissions in the last decade. Some recent commissioning partners include the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus and the San Francisco Symphony, the Children’s Chorus of Washington, the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble & Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, The Choral Arts Society of Washington, “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, and many academic institutions.
DiOrio is deeply committed to strengthening the profession by empowering others, and he recently completed a four-year term as president and president-elect of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (2018-22), for which he was honored with NCCO's inaugural Distinguished Service Award. DiOrio has also served as chair of ACDA’s Composition Initiatives Standing Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors for Chorus America. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts from the Yale School of Music, as well as the M.M.A. and M.M. in Conducting from Yale and the B.M. in Composition summa cum laude from Ithaca College.
selected works
press
In 2003, he remembers seeing Robinson’s election as the first openly gay bishop. “I felt like there was hope,” DiOrio recalls. “If one of the major Christian denominations in the world could welcome (Robinson) as a faith leader, surely there were paths for my own life that I had not yet imagined.”
Danielle Charbonneau
The program peaked with I Am, by Dominick DiOrio, a technically demanding piece that requires total control by the singers because of its highly dissonant lines. Its performance was nothing short of virtuosic and one wishes it had closed the program, which was actually finished with two rather pedestrian compositions by Alvaro Bermudez (Padre Nuestro) and Rafael Hernández (Cachita).
Márcio Bezerra
recent news

The 152 year old Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia will join an all-star lineup at the free "Victory at Sea" concert, part of a historic celebration marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Thirty members from this renowned chorus will perform three patriotic selections alongside the U.S. Navy Band and U.S. Navy Sea Chanters. Additionally, the chorus will accompany headliner Patti LaBelle in her own arrangement of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. In a distinguished honor, Mendelssohn Chorus Artistic Director & Conductor Dominick DiOrio will be the only civilian conductor featured in this concert, leading the chorus and The Navy Band in Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus.” The concert, headlined by Philadelphia soul legend Patti LaBelle, will be broadcast nationwide on C-SPAN in the days following the event.

Under the direction of Dominick DiOrio, NOTUS has emerged as one of America’s most luminous contemporary vocal collectives — a vibrant laboratory of living, breathing music. NOTUS' third commercial release, WEAVING ETERNITY gathers works by five composers whose styles range from radiant abstraction to folkloric murmur, unified by a shared sense of harmonic color. Featuring music by Gabriel Jenks, Don Freund, Dale Trumbore, Zanaida Stewart Robles, and Dominick DiOrio, with featured saxophone artist Otis Murphy. Explore the album here.

A consortium of churches, community choruses, and cultural institutions has come together to honor The Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson through world premiere performances of my newly commissioned musical composition born from Gene's words: Our Wildest Imagining. Lead Commissioner institutions include Washington National Cathedral, The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Gay Men's Chorus of Washington D.C., and more. Premiere performances begin June 1 and continue through 2026.

My original work A Home Is Found at Christmas will see its Philadelphia premiere performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra and Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia on December 14th and 15th, 2024 as part of "The Glorious Sound of Christmas," a series of concerts made famous by Eugene Ormandy's recording of many years ago. William Eddins conducts the performances, with the Mendelssohn Chorus prepared by yours truly.