CORO offers all members the opportunity to perform a diverse repertoire of music through a wide variety of programming that includes chamber vocal music, standard choral octavos, and commissioned works. It is the goal of CORO to provide the highest level of education to young choral musicians through recordings, clinics, and collaborative workshops.
The CORO Vocal Artists provide concerts throughout the season, create commercial audio and video recordings, and collaborate with other arts ensembles.
Philip Moody, Artistic Director & Founder
Dr. Philip Moody is the Artistic Director and Founder of CORO and Assistant Director and core member of GRAMMY®-nominated True Concord. He is a bass/baritone hailed as “exceptional and vibrant, with good control and feeling.” Dr. Moody’s discography includes over 20 commercial recordings inducing True Concord’s GRAMMY®-nominated recording of new Stephen Paulus choral works. He has served as Director of Choral Activities at Clayton State University and Associate Director of Choral Activities at University of Georgia.
While earning his Doctorate of Musical Arts under Dr. Bruce Chamberlain, Dr. Moody was the winner of the 2011 ACDA graduate conducting competition, participated in the 2011 Conducting Masterclass with Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival, and was awarded both the Creative Achievement Award and the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona. Prior to Tucson, he lived in Houston where he sang with Houston Grand Opera Chorus and was the Schissler Conducting Fellow at the Moores School of Music: University of Houston. As the orchestral conducting fellow there he was the Associate Conductor for the Moores Opera Center, both Assistant Conductor and Manager for the Moores School Orchestras, and received a Master of Music degree in orchestral and opera conducting. From the University of New Mexico he received two Master of Music degrees: one in conducting and one in voice and received his Bachelor of Music in Sacred Music/Voice from Saint Olaf College. His mentors include Helmuth Rilling, Bruce Chamberlain, Anton Armstrong, Bradley Ellingboe, Richard Bado, and Franz Krager.
Dr. Moody is also an active conductor, adjudicator, and vocalist. He is routinely asked to participate in clinics for high school and college choral ensembles, adjudicate choral festivals, and conduct festival choirs. Dr. Moody was a co-founder of the professional male vocal ensemble Cantus, based in Minneapolis, where he sang with the ensemble and served as Co-Artistic Director; he has also served as Artistic Director of the Rivercross Theater Company in Northfield, MN. He has sung for Robert Shaw, Sir David Willcocks, John Fiore, Robert Spano, Phillipe Jordan, and Ole Kristian Ruud; he has performed with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Minnesota Orchestra, The Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and The Santa Fe Symphony. Dr. Moody has performed with the choruses of Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Minnesota Opera, and Arizona Opera and performed several seasons with True Concord, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Cantare Houston, and Houston Chamber Choir.
Erin Plisco, Associate Conductor
Dr. Erin Plisco is the Associate Director of Choral Studies at Missouri State University, where she helps lead a comprehensive choral program of over 300 singers, conducts multiple choirs, and teaches undergraduate and graduate choral conducting and literature. She is a frequent guest clinician and presenter across the United States and abroad, and enjoys working with choirs of all ages. She also continues to maintain a career as a professional ensemble soprano, performing with choirs across the Unites States. Plisco currently serves as the SSAA Repertoire & Resource Chair for both the Southwestern division and the Missouri chapter of the American Choral Director’s Association. Upcoming engagements include presentations at the American Choral Director’s Association National Conference and the Oxford Conducting Institute International Conducting Studies Conference.
Plisco holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting from the University of Arizona, where she studied conducting with Bruce Chamberlain and voice with Elizabeth Futral. She studied at Trinity College, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) for the Master of Music in Choral Studies, where she was a recipient of the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship and studied with Grammy-nominated conductor Stephen Layton. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Choral Music Education and Vocal Performance with a minor in Leadership Studies from Christopher Newport University.
Plisco has conducted choirs of all ages, most notably serving as the Director of Choral Studies at Pinecrest High School (Southern Pines, N.C.). Under her direction, the choirs received numerous awards at national festivals and competitions, performed by invitation at the NCMEA State Conference, and her chamber choir was the winner of The American Prize for high school choral ensemble performance in 2013. She also contracted and hosted Grammy award-winning composer Eric Whitacre for a residency at the school.
Recent positions have included directing ensembles at the University of Arizona and East Carolina University, and serving as assistant director for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Chorus and True Concord Voices & Orchestra (a professional ensemble based in Arizona). Plisco also recently served as visiting conducting faculty for the three-summer Masters of Music in choral conducting program at Simpson College. She is a past recipient of the Colleen Kirk Award, given by the ACDA Southern Division in recognition of her outstanding achievements as a young conductor, and has spent three summers as a choral fellow with the Yale School of Music-Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut, under the direction of Simon Carrington.