Mission Statement
To inspire the soul to sing, move the heart to empathy, and build community, all through groundbreaking musical performance.
“Exquisite in every way” (Gramophone), The Thirteen is a professional choir and orchestra celebrated for reimagining the potential of vocal music. In our fourteen years of performing works ranging from early chant to world premieres and the centuries in between, we have gained a reputation not only for our “tight and attractive vocal blend and excellent choral discipline” (American Record Guide), but also as clarion voices for our time, “offer[ing] a vivid portrait of a nation still finding its voice” (The Washington Post). By our mission to inspire the soul to sing, move the heart to empathy, and build community through groundbreaking musical performance, we seek to humanize the stories we tell and reach every audience member. As the chief music critic of The Washington Post wrote of our New American Songbook program in May 2025, “I wasn’t expecting to have my heart broken.”
We are committed to educating and supporting the next generation of musicians through our Vocal Fellows Program for early career singers who have experienced obstacles in the pursuit of their craft and through robust education programs for students at the high school and collegiate levels in masterclasses, workshops, and collaborative performance sessions.
We have been in residence at Yale University, University of Maryland College Park, Bowling Green State University, Eastern Illinois University, the University of Central Oklahoma, York College, and nearly fifteen more colleges, as well as performing on concert series throughout the United States. In 2018 The Thirteen was awarded the Greater Washington Area Choral Excellence award for Most Creative Programming.
Our commercial recordings include “Monteverdi: The Lost Vespers of 1650,” Monteverdi’s “Vespers of 1610,” the World Premiere recording of Scott Ordway’s opera, “The Outer Edge of Youth,” “Truth and Fable,” the critically-acclaimed Christmas album “Snow on Snow,” “Voice Eternal,” and “Radiant Dark,” which reached #28 on the iTunes Classical Charts.
What’s in a name?
When Matthew Robertson founded The Thirteen in 2012, he initially imagined a collaborative ensemble that performed and toured with twelve singers and one conductor, making music that was best suited for that configuration. Since then, The Thirteen’s artistic ambitions have outstripped our name, and we now perform with varying numbers of musicians as required by the music we program, from five to 50. This led us in 2022 to add “Choir & Orchestra” to our name. Still, while our numbers may expand or contract according to the music we perform, our commitment to reaching each member of our audience remains unchanged. So too does our commitment to the collaborative music-making environment that was the initial inspiration for our name, The Thirteen.
VISION
The Thirteen cultivates a world that has found its voice in song, moving, uniting, and uplifting all people.
VALUES
We celebrate the power of music to inspire curiosity, create community, and transform the world. We trust in the power of art to animate the conscience on issues of deep import to the human condition.
We are motivated by the values inherent in music making - improvisation, flexibility, invention, and collaboration - and we embody them in our culture. We approach our work with mutual respect, humility, and responsiveness within our musical ensemble and with our wider community.
We strive to create musical beauty by rededicating ourselves to artistic excellence and by reimagining the potential of music to move and inspire.
Music reflects the community in which it sounds. We treasure the rich diversity of our home and seek new pathways to belonging. The arts are for everyone. We work toward equitable access and representation in our audiences, our musicians, and our repertoire.