Why I Love to Sing With Spectrum...

“John Ehrlich chooses unfailingly interesting programs. He expects—and gets—consistently high performance standards. On top of these two essentials, he addresses the deeper meanings in the music and the higher purposes of what we are doing.”

“After only one rehearsal with JWE, I was already a better musician and a better singer!”

“I’ve sung with a lot of famous conductors, and—with one or two exceptions—they didn’t do it for me like John Ehrlich does.”

“Because John expects performance-like excellence at each and every rehearsal, all that remains to be added come concert-time is the excitement of performing for a live audience.”

“Only during a Spectrum Singers performance have I felt so emotionally involved with the music that I became choked up while singing a passionate fortissimo.”

“John is exacting and demanding because he fully understands, respects, and truly loves what the composers and librettists have created. We are able to hear things we never could hear, and sing beautiful things we could never sing, if it weren’t for his deep commitment to what the music deserves.”

“John picks the most wonderful music. I never get into a rut—he always challenges me.”

“The Spectrum sound is unbelievable—crisp and full of emotion.”

“In this, my 20th season with the group, I am still learning and growing as a singer.”

“I love the fact that Spectrum is a small group. I’ve sung with choruses that have a hundred members, and I always felt lost in the crowd.”

John W. Ehrlich, Founder and Music Director of The Spectrum Singers, has been active as a singer and conductor in the Boston and Cambridge areas for more than thirty-five years.

Son of a concert pianist and a microbiologist, Mr. Ehrlich was born in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, and prepared for higher education at Grosse Pointe University School and the New Hampton School.

He studied music and conducting while attending the Hartt School of Music and Trinity College, Hartford, from which he received his B.A. degree, and subsequently undertook graduate studies in conducting and musicology at both Harvard and Boston Universities. His teachers were Robert Shaw, Gregg Smith, G. Wallace Woodworth, Nathan Gottschalk, and Vytautous Marijousius.

Also a singer, Mr. Ehrlich has sung with the Hartford Chamber Choir, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Cambridge Society for Early Music, John Oliver Chorale, Boston Baroque, Cantata Singers, and Boston’s Emmanuel Church choir. For eight seasons he was Music Director of the Master Singers of Worcester.

This is Mr. Ehrlich’s 32st season as Music Director of The Spectrum Singers.