A long finish for a choral director, a new look for Washington’s choruses

Scribner, 76, has for the last two years been taking a long farewell from the Choral Arts Society, the group he founded 47 years ago and from which he is retiring at the end of this season. With a $2 million annual operating budget and more than 180 singers, the Choral Arts Society is one of the biggest choruses in Washington. Scribner’s successor has been named (Scott Tucker, of Cornell University); he’s conducted his last concert (the Brahms Requiem in April); and now the other leaders of Washington’s choral scene are convening to send him off. Among Wednesday’s performers at the National Cathedral are J. Reilly Lewis, of the Cathedral Choral Society, and Robert Schafer, who for 36 years led the Washington Chorus and now heads the City Choir of Washington.

Indeed, this is a goodbye to more than Norman Scribner. The evening is a farewell to a whole era of choral life in Washington: a time when the city had four big symphonic choruses with million-dollar budgets led by four charismatic conductors performing the great works of the choral repertory.