Audience and Demographics

MasterVoices serves nearly 15,000 audience members each year through a combination of self-produced concerts, co-productions, and hired engagements. Drawing from lovers of opera, musical theater, and classical music, we have built a loyal core of more than 8,000 “opt-in” subscribers with whom we communicate through regular e-blast announcements and an annual direct mail brochure. We print approximately 4,500 flyers for concerts, distributed at professional venues and community drop-off sites, and we engage a professional advertising firm, engagement consultant, and press representative year-round.

Our chorus members act as key advocates for our concerts and enable us to reach into specific communities throughout the five boroughs – a recent survey found that 14% identify as immigrants, and 39% as first-generation.

Our membership in Audience360 has allowed us to target by demographic and interest for the first time – this was a critical investment for us, since our contracts with venues don’t allow us full access to our own attendee databases.

Dedicated partnerships and programs have also helped to diversify our audience in recent years. These include BRIDGES, launched in 2015, through which we commission a composer to work with a specific geographical community over the course of a year to create a new piece of music in which all levels of skill can participate; SIDE-BY-SIDE, now in its 15th year, which provides mentorship and training opportunities for economically disadvantaged high school students and has built a network of over 400 alumni; and our ongoing outreach initiative through which we distribute over 600 free tickets to students, seniors, and underserved groups each year. For example, we recently partnered with HIAS and International Rescue Committee to invite their constituents to ISRAEL IN EGYPT, a program exploring issues of exile, which featured the work of Syrian-Armenian visual artist Kevork Mourad.

Robert Shaw founded MasterVoices in 1941 as a moral force against discrimination, becoming one of the nation’s first interracial/interfaith choirs. We maintain this firm stance on  inclusiveness – our soloists, composers, and our Education Program already reflect a broad population. A priority this year is crafting a plan for the further diversification of our adult singers. We are making a bold commitment that the chorus will reflect the same demographic as that of the U.S. by 2021.  This requires multiple strategies, beginning with outreach to specific communities and ethnicities, and holding auditions in more locales. Considerations of diversity will also continue in our decisions to hire staff and consultants. MasterVoices has also engaged a search firm to increase our Board diversity.