The Kansas City Symphony Chorus has a new leader for the first time in nearly two decades, and she's commuting in from Bloomington, Indiana. Betsy Burleigh, a longtime professor at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, has been named the chorus's new director, taking over a Grammy-winning, 195-member volunteer ensemble that ranks among the largest orchestral choirs in the nation.
The Kansas City Symphony made the announcement on August 13, with Symphony President and CEO Danny Beckley praising Burleigh's collaborative leadership and commitment to choral artistry, according to the Kansas City Symphony. Beckley noted that Burleigh's guest engagement with the chorus during spring 2025 demonstrated her ability to help the group thrive in its next chapter. As reported by Axios, Burleigh had already prepared the chorus last year for Mendelssohn's “A Midsummer Night's Dream” and Rachmaninoff's “Spring” before being named director.
Burleigh steps into a role vacated by Charles Bruffy, who served as the chorus's director for 17 years, from 2008 until his departure in 2025. Per Axios, Bruffy departed suddenly, and Keith Florea, president of the Kansas City Symphony Chorus, declined to comment on the nature of his exit. Bruffy has also served as artistic director of the professional Kansas City Chorale since 1988, earning three Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance and Best Small Ensemble Performance out of nine career nominations, a legacy detailed by KCUR. KCUR reported that Charles Bruffy, then artistic director of the Grammy award-winning Kansas City Chorale, debuted at the helm of the Kansas City Symphony Chorus in 2008.
A Commuter's Playbook From Pittsburgh
This isn't the first time Burleigh has balanced an academic post with leading a major metropolitan symphonic chorus. Before joining Indiana University's faculty, she served as music director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh for a decade, from 2006 to 2015, regularly preparing that chorus for performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under conductor Manfred Honeck. During her final two seasons there, she commuted weekly from Bloomington to Pittsburgh, according to the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.
Axios reports Burleigh will travel to Kansas City for every concert week and during the majority of December, the chorus's busiest season. She'll rely on assistant director Patrice Sollenberger for some rehearsals in between. Burleigh chaired Indiana University's Choral Conducting Department for 11 years, from 2013 to 2024, and now holds the Thomas R. Kasdorf Professorship in Choral Conducting there.
Easing Into a New Chapter
Burleigh has said change will come slowly as she gets to know the organization, per the same Axios report. She told the outlet she loved the chorus and was impressed with both the symphony and Helzberg Hall, adding that she's geekish about venue details and praising the hall's acoustics. The article notes she pointed to the clearance between choir rows at Helzberg Hall, which prevents members from singing into the backs of each other's heads.
Florea told Axios the chorus has a strong culture that will help it adapt to a new director, and said experienced choral singers who can blend with the group have an opportunity to sing with it. The chorus holds up to about 160 performers at a time in Helzberg Hall's elevated choir loft, which sits inside the 1,600-seat venue at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The hall opened in 2011 with acoustic design by Yasuhisa Toyota, and its vineyard-style layout places the choir loft directly behind the orchestra stage, per the Kansas City Symphony.
A Program Stretching Back More Than 60 Years
The chorus's roots stretch back to the early 1960s, when it formed as the Mendelssohn Choir before becoming the Civic Chorus and later adopting its current name and role in 1988, six years after the orchestra's own founding, according to the Kansas City Symphony. The Kansas City Symphony itself was founded in 1982 following the dissolution of the Kansas City Philharmonic, and today employs 80 full-time musicians while serving as the resident orchestra for both the Kansas City Ballet and Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
Burleigh's tenure begins as the chorus prepares an eclectic slate of programming. Per Axios, the group will perform Holst's “The Planets” in a multimedia, space-themed concert next month, present movie concerts including “The Polar Express,” and hold midseason auditions in January 2027. In November, the chorus will perform Brahms' “A German Requiem” under Music Director Matthias Pintscher, featuring German texts from the Luther Bible focused on comforting the living, paired alongside Arnold Schoenberg's Holocaust memorial piece “A Survivor from Warsaw,” according to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, among adults who sang, made music, danced, or acted, 63 percent did so at home and 40 percent did so in a place of worship. The National Endowment for the Arts reported that the proportion of adults singing declined by five percentage points in its latest survey.
Stability At The Top For The Symphony
Burleigh's arrival lands amid broader organizational stability at the symphony. Pintscher launched his tenure at the start of the 2024-25 season, and in June the symphony extended his contract through the 2033-34 season, the Kansas City Symphony announced. The Kansas City Symphony Chorus director is responsible for organizing and preparing the group to sound its best, and as Hoodline previously reported on the season opener, the orchestra's 2026-27 classical season already features star power with guest cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Helzberg Hall.
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