The origin of the Wasatch Chorale dates back to 1974, when Jacob Bos, an emeritus BYU professor of music, founded the Civic Oratorio Society - a choir to provide singers in the community with an opportunity to develop their talents. In 1980, when Lois Johnson became the director, the organization’s name was changed to the Utah Valley Choral Society to allow for a wider variety of musical styles.  If Jacob Bos was the founding father of the choir, Lois Johnson was its nurse, tutor, and mentor. During the eighteen years of her leadership, (1980-98) the Choral Society became incorporated, received non-profit status, and established a yearly concert series, featuring a varied repertoire ranging from Baroque to Broadway, as well as introducing music by local composers and arrangers. In 1983 the Choral Society established Utah Valley’s annual Messiah Sing-In , an event which they sponsored for sixteen years.

     The Choral Society performed in the musical “Threads of Glory,” appeared on the Temple Square concert series, at the Mozart Festival in Midway, and in Provo’s Freedom Festival. Over the years members of the Choral Society ranged in age from high school to senior citizens and represented all walks of life. To sing with the choir, they came from as far away as Cache County on the north, to Spanish Fork on the south. 

     After J. Arden Hopkin became the choir’s artist director in 1999, the Choral Society board of trustees approved a new name for the choir. In the year 2000 it became the Wasatch Chorale. A year later a chamber ensemble known as the Wasatch Chamber Singers was formed, made up of singers selected from the larger choir.

     In 1999 The Wasatch Chorale began sponsoring an annual choral festival where community, college, and high school choirs perform together under the direction of renowned choral directors from the region and the nation.  

     The year 2001 was a significant one for the Wasatch Chorale, highlighted by their Carnegie Hall debut and the release of their first CD, Bound for the Promised Land, a collection of original arrangements of American folk songs and spirituals. Other highlights during the years of Arden Hopkin’s leadership (1999-2005) were collaborations with the Utah Valley Symphony Orchestra, masterworks concerts performed in St. George, Utah and Sacramento, California, and the introduction of the first annual Boar’s Head Festival in January of 2005. Later that year the baton was passed to a new artistic director, Dyanne Riley, who now conducts the choir.