About Us

Sponsored by the New York City Bar Association, the New York City Bar Chorus (the "CBC") has pursued a "musical pro bono" mission, changing the public's perception of legal professionals for the better, one outreach performance at a time since 1993. Through 300+ concerts for thousands of listeners in a wide variety of community settings (including senior residences, nursing homes, AIDS and cancer patient residences, and rehab facilities), the Chorus has made a significant positive impact on the life of New York City. Honored by NY1 News as "New Yorkers of the Week" in 2004, the CBC's leaders and members are all legal professionals — attorneys, paralegals, legal administrators, law students — who volunteer their time and talents to the CBC and its "musical pro bono" mission. Even COVID-19 could not stop the Chorus from continuing its outreach mission: we staged several remote performances at the height of the pandemic for especially grateful audiences.

The CBC also sings for luminaries of the bench and bar, including our founder, former Fordham Law School Dean (and former New York City Bar President) John Feerick, and has appeared on local and national television and public radio. The CBC has sung at two ABA Annual Meetings, in 1993 and 2017, the second time jamming with the Paula Boggs Band as well as performing its own set. In recognition of our 30th Anniversary and the Chorus' longtime contributions to the life of the city, a NYC mayoral proclamation designated November 9, 2023, as "New York City Bar Chorus Day."

We have frequently collaborated with other choruses and NYC cultural institutions. In 2009, the CBC had the pleasure of performing with its Scottish counterparts, the Faculty of Advocates Choir of Edinburgh, in New York. The CBC welcomed the Chicago Bar Association Chorus to the Big Apple for a March 2014 joint concert in New York and completed the exchange in November 2015 with a reciprocal joint concert at St. James Cathedral in the Windy City. Also in 2014, the CBC hosted a New York jam session with the Vizcaya Bar Chorus (from Bilbao, Spain). In March 2015, the CBC made its Off-Broadway debut at the renowned New York Theater Workshop, in David Greig's acclaimed play The Events.

In the summer of 2016, a large delegation from the CBC participated in David Lang's Lincoln Center outdoor mass-choral event the public domain, a world premiere commission to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Mostly Mozart Festival. A month later, the CBC staged a joint outreach concert with the Sound Waves Choir from Dover, England. The CBC made a memorable Carnegie Hall debut in October 2019 at the 2019 National Fall Sing: Remembering 9/11 concert, which received front-page coverage from the New York Law Journal. The CBC returned to Carnegie Hall in January of 2025 to sing in the DCINY production of the Karl Jenkins Gloria.