Led by Artistic Director Timothy Westerhaus since June 2022, Choral Arts Northwest has garnered national recognition and critical acclaim for exquisite performances and creative, diverse programming. CANW won the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence (2010); and the American Prize for choral performance (community division) twice, placing first in 2010 and second in 2013. CANW has performed at the 2024 NW ACDA Conference in Spokane, WA, the 2018 ACDA NW Regional Conference in Portland, the 2015 ACDA National Conference in Salt Lake City, and the 2013 Chorus America National Conference. In December of 2015, Choral Arts Northwest accepted an invitation to perform at a White House Holiday reception and was selected to sing for a private audience with President and Mrs. Obama.

Made up of volunteer singers drawn almost exclusively from the Puget Sound region, CANW combines a deep sense of community with a passion for artistic excellence. While performing diverse repertoire from Renaissance polyphony through 20th-century masterworks, CANW retains an abiding commitment to new music and has commissioned and premiered new choral compositions annually since 2007. Our Composer-In-Residence and Finding Your Voice programs have produced important collaborations with composers such as Shawn Kirchner, John Muehleisen, Hyo-won Woo, Eric Barnum, Jake Runestad, Melinda Bargreen, Dale Trumbore, Jessica French, Reena Esmail, and John David Earnest.

In 2023-24, our 30th Anniversary season, we feature creative partnerships with the Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture, CANW alumni and our Founding and Emeritus Artistic Directors, Northwest composers including Morten Lauridsen, Korean composer Hyo-won Woo, the Morning Star Korean Cultural Center, and the NW ACDA Conference, Birds Connect Seattle and the Northwest Boychoir, regional High School choirs, and Cantabile from the Columbia Choirs organization. Along the way, our Artistic Director Timothy Westerhaus, has conducted workshops (or will conduct workshops in May) with high school ensembles from Ballard, Blaine, Bothell, Bellevue, Mt. Vernon, Newport, and Sammamish High Schools, the Apprentices from Northwest Boychoir and Cantabile from the Columbia Choirs organization. Performed music includes major works such as Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Requiem, Morten Lauridsen's Mid-Winter Songs, Adolphus Hailstork’s cantata I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, Christopher Tin's The Lost Birds (Northwest premiere), and finally Reena Esmail's Malhaar: A Requiem for Water. Guest artists for the season include guitarist Elizabeth Brown, tenor Namarea Randolph-Yosea, Hindustani vocalist Saili Oak, Tabla artist Ravi Albright, and 2023-24 Composer-in-Residence Reena Esmail. Esmail's Malhaar: A Requiem for Water, a work bridging the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, concludes our season, offering the Northwest premiere of this landmark work premiered in 2022 by the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

We invite you to partner with Choral Arts NW as we forge ahead with exciting new ventures, cross-cultural artistic partnerships, and community-building enterprises supporting diversity, equity, and justice throughout our region and across the world.

CANW celebrates its 31st Season in 2024-2025!