Considering its great musical activity, Philadelphia is not especially conspicuous for its choral organizations, but the Orpheus Club, a male chorus founded in 1872, the Cecilia Society, founded in 1875, and the Philadelphia Chorus Society are worthy of mention. By far the most interesting centre of choral music in Pennsylvania is the Moravian settlement of Bethlehem, which since its foundation in 1741 has been cultivating that branch of musical art with splendid sincerity and idealism. As early as 1811 Haydn's 'Creation' was performed there; Bach's great B minor Mass was given by the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for the first time in America in 1900, and in 1903 the choir held a Bach festival during which it performed the entire 'Christmas Oratorio,' the _Magnificat_, 'St. Matthew's Passion,' and the B minor Mass. Of course, every city and town of any size in the East has one or more singing societies which do their own fair share in entertaining and improving it musically. It would be impossible to enumerate them. New England is, as it always has been, an especially lively centre of choral work, and such cities as Portland, Me., Springfield and Concord, Mass., Burlington, Vt., and New Haven, Conn., possess highly trained and efficient choruses. Of particular interest is the Worcester County Musical Association, of Worcester, Mass., an outgrowth of the old musical conventions held for the purpose of promoting church music. It was organized in 1863 and for a few years confined itself to psalm-tunes and simple, sentimental cantatas; but it soon graduated to Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Verdi, Gounod, and other serious composers of oratorios and masses. The annual festivals of the association now rank among the most important events of the American musical year. III