Early Days
The early days of Bel Canto Chorus can be traced back to a small choral ensemble of just four men and four women who were led by Thomas H. Stemper, a local music teacher and owner of the Milwaukee Church Supply Company.

They sang everything a capella, and like many of the chorus groups at the time, specialized in sacred music.

On Easter Sunday, 1931, this small ensemble, which included Stemper’s wife, Elsa Van Asche Stemper, and his nephew, William Hargarten, appeared at the chapel of St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee and performed Hans Gruber’s Festival Mass, the work that would inspire the group’s original name.
Singing as Tradition
Milwaukee nights were filled with music in the 1930s, as choral societies and singing clubs ​throughout the city continued traditions brought to the area by German immigrants.
Expansion and a New Name
The Festival Singers of Milwaukee grew in size to about 70 singers in 10 years, and as the only chorus in Milwaukee not affiliated with a particular church, were kept busy, performing before Holy Name Societies (Catholic men’s groups), at conventions, dedications, memorial services, and on local radio programs.  

The singers themselves came from all walks of life.  According to an article, titled Festival Singers Grow In Numbers And Popularity, published in the Catholic Herald Citizen on October 27, 1945, the Festival Singers “range in age from bobby-soxers to grandmothers.  There are students, and housewives and clerks; there is a traffic officer, a safety engineer, a freight clerk, a chemist, an insurance agent, and a carpenter.  Others are in business for themselves; but none is a professional musician.”
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Over the next 75 years, however, the Festival Singers (known in later years as Bel Canto Choir and then by its present name, Bel Canto Chorus), would distinguish themselves from the many singing groups in Milwaukee to evolve into one of the country’s major oratorio choruses, and later into a highly skilled and versatile chorus specializing in twentieth-century choral music.
To view more Bel Canto Chorus history view/download the ​75th Anniversary Book.  
​While we are making this download available for free, we suggest and appreciate your donation.
Much of the text here has been compiled from, and sometimes directly borrowed from the 1996 and 2006 Bel Canto Chorus Anniversary Commemorative publications, which celebrated and summarized the history of Bel Canto Chorus.  We thank James Hill, Mr. Robert Kucharski and his wife, Jean and Hilton Neal, Mary and Nate Moscisker, Lisa Kurtz, and the entire anniversary committee and volunteers for their hard work and dedication.