PHS Choir

2023-24 Choral Performances 

October 27 and 28:  PHS Choir and PHS Orchestra present The Little Prince
7:30 PM
PHS PAC

November 24:  PHS Choir Tree-Lighting
4:45 PM
Palmer Square

December 16:  Princeton Symphony Orchestra Holiday POPS! with PHS Choir
3:00 PM and 6:00 PM
Richardson Auditorium

December 20:  PHS Winter Concert
7:30 PM 
Princeton University Chapel 

February 23:  Spirituals and Gospel Festival
7:30 PM 
PHS Performing Arts Center

April 18:  PHS Choir Spring Concert
7:30 PM 
PHS Performing Arts Center

June 6:  PHS Choir Cabaret Night
7:30 PM 
PHS Performing Arts Center

Princeton High School Choir

The Princeton High School Choir has an unusually rich tradition of choral excellence that is unique among American high schools. The choir has performed extensively in North America and Europe, touring as representatives of Princeton, New Jersey, one of America’s most distinguished communities. One of five performing ensembles, the 85 members of the choir are selected after careful audition of nearly 250 voices in the high school’s choral program.  

The choir has toured to Ljubljana, Slovenia and Padova, Verona and Venice, Italy (2013), Barcelona and Catalonia (2011), Sweden (2007), Prague and Dresden (2005), Budapest and Vienna (2003), Russia and Germany (2001), performing in St. Petersburg, Novgorod, and Berlin, including a performance of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion in Berlin’s Schauspielhaus.  The choir was also invited to perform for the 850th anniversary of the city of Moscow in 1997, and additional performances on this trip were in St. Petersburg and Yaroslavl. 

The Princeton High School Choir has collaborated with many notable composers, conductors and guest clinicians and is featured every December with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, members of the Princeton High School Choir sand choruses from Henry Purcell's King Arthur with the Dryden Ensemble of Princeton. In 1963, Gian Carlo Menotti invited the choir to perform at his Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy.  Maurice Duruflé conducted the choir in a performance of his Requiem in 1971, and Zoltán Kodály conducted the choir in 1963 for the International Association of Choral Directors in Budapest.  Other collaborations have included Vincent Persichetti, singing his Mass for Mixed Voices; Peter Maxwell Davies, premiering his Veni Sancte Spiritus; Roger Sessions, premiering his Mass; and Frank Lewin, premiering and recording his Mass for the Dead in memory of Robert F. Kennedy.  Other performances have included ACDA Regional and National Conventions, the White House, and the Washington National Cathedral.

Cantus

Princeton High School's Cantus choir, under the direction of Vincent Metallo and Associate Director, Sarah Pelletier, is one of five choral ensembles at Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. It is a non-auditioned choir of 40 treble singers and is comprised of sophomores, juniors, and seniors.  Performance highlights include Britten’s War Requiem with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, Benjamin Britten’s St. Nicolas, and J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. They have participated in the American Choral Director’s Association Women’s Choral Festival at Smith College.  Cantus tours annually, taking up residency at colleges and universities throughout the Eastern United States. Past residencies include Harvard University, Wellesley College, Brown University, Ithaca College, Boston University, Vassar College, Northwestern University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of Delaware. Broadcasts of their annual Winter Concert are regularly featured on WWFM The Classical Network, which broadcasts throughout greater New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.  

Meet the Directors

Vincent Metallo

Has distinguished himself in recent years as an eagerly sought after conductor, singer and music educator. Director of the Princeton High School Choral Department, Mr. Metallo is also the Music Director of the acclaimed Pennsylvania Girlchoir based in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. He has held the positions of Chair of the Performing Arts at the Princeton Day School, Artistic Director of the American Boychoir, and Assistant Professor of Music at Westminster Choir College, DePauw University, Wellesley College and Lehigh University.

Mr. Metallo has collaborated on numerous performances with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony , Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Collegium, Princeton Symphony Orchestra and the Dryden Ensemble of Princeton, NJ. Recorded and televised events include Heinrich Biber's Missa Christi Resurgentis with the New York Collegium under the direction of Andrew Parrott; A Ceremony of Carols at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts for Public Radio International; PBS Live from Lincoln Center; A&E's Breakfast with the Arts; The Lost Christmas Eve with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

A graduate of the Hartt School of Music in Music Education and Vocal Performance and Westminster Choir College in Conducting, Mr. Metallo is certified in Kodaly music pedagogy through the Kodaly Musical Training Institute. 

Sarah Pelletier

As a pianist, she has accompanied and toured with The American Boychoir and The Westminster Choir, and has served as Musical Director of the Opera Theater of Weston in Vermont.  Ms. Pelletier has been on the faculty at The Walnut Hill School, Emerson College, The Peddie School, and is currently on the Vocal Performing Faculty at Princeton University.

Her singing has been praised by the Boston Globe for possessing “virtues of voice, intelligence and musicianship… with purity of tone and expression”. She has performed as a guest artist at the world’s leading music festivals and recent highlights include a recital at the Kennedy Center on the Millennium Stage; Mozart Vesperae Solennes de confessore at Carnegie Hall; performances with New England Philharmonic of Berg’s Wozzeck and Schwantner’s Magabunda. Ms. Pelletier has appeared in opera productions with Opera North, Opera Theater of Philadelphia, Princeton Festival Opera, Opera-Aperta of Boston, and the Aldeburgh Festival, UK. Her operatic roles have included the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi in Cosí fan tutte,  Mimí in La Bohème, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Lady Billows in Albert Herring. She has collaborated on these productions with many esteemed conductors and directors such as Seiji Ozawa, David Kneuss, Drew Minter, James Robert Carson, and Craig Smith.

As an advocate of the art-song recital, Ms. Pelletier is a founding member of the Florestan Recital Project, and she has given solo recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Goethe Institute in Boston. Her interest in Contemporary Music has led to premieres by Howard Frazin, John Goodman, James Yannatos, and Arlene Zallman as well as performances under the direction of Lukas Foss, Robert Spano, and John Harbison.  She has performed for the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Composers in Red Sneakers, the “Music in Time Series” at Spoleto Festival USA, and with Santa Fe New Music.  Ms. Pelletier is recorded on Chesky Records.