The Artistic Director of Key Chorale
Joseph Caulkins, Artistic Director
Audiences have come to love the passionate conducting, engaging personality, and creative programming of Maestro Joseph Caulkins. Joseph is currently the Artistic Director for Sarasota’s Key Chorale and was the Associate Conductor/Director of Choruses for the Southwest Florida Symphony for nine seasons. With his choruses Mr. Caulkins has released 3 CDs, led two European concert tours, conducted numerous premieres, commissioned new works for his choruses, and led SWFLS’s annual Messiah and Holiday Pops concerts. In the fall of 2010 Joseph founded Vocal Artistry, a 22-voice chamber choir of First Baptist Church in Downtown Fort Myers where Joseph is also Director of Music Ministries.
Joseph is known for concert “events” and has led his Key Chorale on an interesting journey including a dramatic performance of Richard Einhorn’s dynamic oratorio, Voices of Light, written to accompany Carl Dreyer’s 1928 silent film classic, “The Passion of Joan of Arc” at the Sarasota Opera House, a collaboration with the Sarasota Opera and the Sarasota Film Society. This Season’s concerts included the US premiere of James Whitbourn’s Annelies, a setting of the Diary of Anne Frank, which the Herald-Tribune called a “Triumph” and the highly acclaimed Cirque des Voix, an innovative concert experience with Circus Sarasota.
An experience Alpinist, Mountain Joe has climbed over100 peaks throughout the United States, Canada, France, and Switzerland including Mount Rainier, Grand Teton, and the 15,776 foot Mont Blanc, Western Europe’s highest mountain. Joseph resides in Fort Myers with his wife Michelle and their cats Ralph and Milhaud.
