By Julia Goldman
An educator, choral clinician and Grammy-award winning conductor, Robert Istad shares his experiences leading the Long Beach Camerata Singers from 2009 – 2017. Pictured, the 2011- 2012 season of Camerata Singers pose before the Queen Mary. Graphic by Julia Goldman.
From the very start, Robert Istad brought changes to the Long Beach Camerata Singers.
Taking over as artistic director in 2009, Istad immediately expanded the ensemble from its size of about 50 singers to 65 in his first season. Over the next two to three years, alongside former president Sharon Tanabe, Istad worked to professionalize the chorus through the implementation of payroll for singers and the collaboration with other professional music groups, like the Long Beach Symphony. From his role in introducing new music to expanding Camerata’s presence to stretch farther than its local sphere, the influence of Istad’s leadership still lives on today.
A Rockford, Illinois Native, Istad pursued his Bachelors of Arts degree in Music at his state’s Augustana College in Rock Island. After receiving his Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the California State University of Fullerton and his Doctorates in choral music at the University of Southern California, Istad later returned to CSUF, where he serves today as a professor of music and as the director of Choral Studies. Prior to his time with Camerata, Istad also maintained a career as a church musician and currently holds the position as chair of the Programs and Education Committee on the executive board of Chorus America.
Since his leave from Camerata in 2017, Istad has served as the artistic director and principal conductor of the Pacific Chorale in Orange County. In this role, both Istad and the Pacific Chorale have made history; in 2022, the group was recognized as the first classical music organization in Orange County to receive Grammy Awards for the “Best Choral Performance” in their recording of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in E- flat Major, “Symphony of a Thousand.”
In an interview on Sept. 26 alongside former singer Meredith Lee and current Artistic Director James K. Bass, Istad recounted his experience with Camerata and reflected on how the group has changed today.
Q: I would love to see this picture of what your life looked like as you were joining Camerata; what led you there?
A: As a doctoral student at USC, I decided to relocate to Long Beach and fell in love with the city. I always wanted to give back to the city in some way, and Camerata Singers provided an opportunity for me to grow as an artist and also give back to the city that I love using my particular artistic language, which happens to be choral music and conducting. I was the assistant conductor of Pacific Chorale and I was already working at Cal State Fullerton and felt the time was right to move away from my church music career and into working with a community organization.
Q: How do you look back at your time with Camerata?
A: I look back at my time with Camarata with amazing fondness and love. I made dear friends, I worked together with our board of directors to build an organization we were proud of and had lots of fun times, good memories and awesome concerts. I learned a lot and am still grateful for all of the wonderful times.
Q: I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a lot of former board members and singers who served under your leadership at Camerata. I’ve heard a lot of them talk about how you took these steps to “legitimize” the organization through expanding the ensemble, adding payroll for singers, the database – all of these things. I’d love to hear directly from you, what was your approach to leadership throughout your time at Camerata?
A: My approach to leadership was and is a system of empowering others to follow their passions. I knew that I couldn’t build the vision that I saw on my own and I wanted to assemble a team of people and that includes board members, eventually staff members, staff singers and volunteer singers, and to rally them around a principle goal and the pillars of our goal. The principal goal was obviously to build a wonderful choral organization in our community that gave back to our community.
Then just lots and lots of hard work, figuring out how to build the organization that now exists today. I couldn’t have done that by myself. In fact, I would never take credit for it. I would give credit to our wonderful people on the board of directors, to Jan Hower and to the entire team of people at that time in the staff that really got behind us and helped us push to grow and to become who we are today.
Q: I’ve heard from former singers that you branched out with a lot of new repertoire. What would you have to say about that?
A: My approach to programming with Camarata felt like I needed to be in tune with the city of Long Beach with the singers in the ensemble and with our audience. I wanted all three parts of this beautiful organization to be uplifted and connected by the repertoire that I selected. And luckily the board of directors and the singers trusted me and gave me the freedom to do lots of new things.
I was so thrilled to commission a choral orchestral piano concerto, one of my seasons from local composer Jenny Brandon… During the Bach Festival that we used to run, we programmed this wonderful concert called “Bach to Blues.” I hired a blues band to come in and play interpolations in-between movements of Bach Motet… and those kinds of creative experiences I think fed the soul of the singers, but also inspired the audience to come and join us. And I think building that partnership with the Long Beach Symphony helped us also grow and increase our capacity for singing new music and also the music of the past.
Q: Since you’ve departed from Camerata in 2017, how do you think you’ve seen it change?
A: I have seen Camerata continue to thrive and grow in our city. That makes me really happy. I’m thrilled that they [Camerata] have maintained their relationship with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, which I think is really critical to a choral organization’s success in the community. I’m thrilled to watch the ranks of members grow, to watch the ability of the choir continue to increase, to watch audiences increase for the choir and the sound of the choir to grow.
I’m really, really proud that some of the education programs we started not only continue today, but are now expanding into other offerings because I think choral music education should be for everybody in our beautiful city of Long Beach. So it has been wonderful and to see them pivot, especially during the pandemic, to watch them create their front porch concert series and all of the wonderful innovations that James has brought to the organization, it warms my heart and makes me so thrilled to have been part of this history and to see Camara continue to thrive.