Fauré Requiem and Mozart Requiem Summer Sing
Peter Norton Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
July 20, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Fauré Requiem
Mozart Requiem
Frank Nemhauser, conductor
Mozart’s Requiem is one of the most popular and beloved works in the choral repertoire. Composed in the last year of Mozart’s life, the Requiem contains all the power for which the composer is famous in its vision of the finality of Death. His musical legacy—and particularly his Requiem—has brought outstanding beauty and richness toWestern culture as few other composers have. The Fauré Requiem is far more demure and understated; its beauty coming through its luscious sounds in this classic Mass for the Dead.
Frank Nemhauser is the Music Director of the Berkshire Choral Institute.
Isaac Stern Auditorium/Perlman Stage, Carnegie Hall
April 20, 2012 at 7:30 PM
This truly moving program presents works that are important milestones in the tenure of our music director.
Stephen Paulus: Whitman’s New York
Morten Lauridsen: Lux Aeterna
Morton Gould: Quotations
Robert De Cormier: Legacy
Charles Ives: Psalm 90
Performers
New York Choral Society
John Daly Goodwin, Music Director and conductor
The Brooklyn Philharmonic
Tickets
Tickets: $80, $75, $65, $50, $40, $30
Box Office: Purchase tickets in person at Carnegie Hall Box Office, 57th Street and 7th Avenue
Telephone: CarnegieCharge: 212-247-7800
Online: Click on the "Buy Tickets" drop down menu at the top of the page, and select this concert.
Program Notes
"American Reflections" is the title of the April 20th program, the finale of the 2011- 2012 NYCS season, which is also John Daly Goodwin's final concert as Music Director of the New York Choral Society. All five works on this program of American choral music have figured prominently in the history of the NYCS, in fact, three of them were commissioned and premiered by the NYCS: Stephen Paulus's Whitman's New York, Robert De Cormier's Legacy, and Morton Gould's Quotations. Morten Lauridsen's haunting Lux Aeterna and Charles Ives' masterpiece Psalm 90 complete the program. Mr. Goodwin and the NYCS are proud champions of the music of our time, especially American choral music, and it is fitting that Mr. Goodwin's twenty-five-year tenure at the helm of the NYCS should close with these "American Reflections."
Whitman's New York, with texts drawn from the poems of Walt Whitman and music by Stephen Paulus, evokes many of the qualities of New York City that have been celebrated by the city's poets and people over the centuries. Commissioned and composed in 2008 to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Choral Society, Whitman's New York is a jubilant paean to this "City of the World," this "proud and passionate city" that Whitman knew and loved so well. Stephen Paulus' setting for chorus and orchestra also captures the joy and wonder that Whitman found in New York City's stately splendor, the frolicsome crested waves of its rivers, and the drenching "gorgeous clouds of the sunset." The NYCS is proud to present the second performance of this thrilling musical tribute to its "mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!"
Morton Gould's autobiographical work Quotations was commissioned by the NYCS and premiered in 1983 in Carnegie Hall. The chorus performed Quotations a second time in 1988 and followed that performance with a commercial recording of the work. Mr. Gould, after thinking over the possible approaches to a choral work, found the idea of platitudes, common sayings, and poetic references challenging and stimulating. As Quotations evolved, he found that these sayings evoked nostalgic memories of his own childhood in Richmond Hill, NY, where he was reared on such aphorisms as "the early bird catches the worm," "a stitch in time saves nine," and "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush." The NYCS performed excerpts from Quotations during a Carnegie Hall memorial concert for Mr. Gould following his death in 1996.
NYCS Music Director Emeritus Robert De Cormier has written that "Legacy has very, very deep personal meaning for me. It was commissioned by the New York Choral Society the year after my son died in 1977 (at age 23). I chose four poems that his grandfather, my father-in-law (John M. Dobbs), had written. I love the poems. One of them is specifically about death ("Legacy," the last one); the rest of them are not. They are very meaningful to me and I think they would have been to Christopher. That's obviously a piece that is very close to my heart." The NYCS gave Legacy its premiere performance in Carnegie Hall in 1980 and recorded it three years later. Mr. De Cormier will celebrate his 90th birthday in 2012 and the NYCS performance of Legacy is a tribute to him and to his countless contributions to American choral music. The chorus is happy that Bob De Cormier plans to attend this special concert.
Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna. In speaking of Morten Lauridsen's sacred works in his book, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century, Nick Strimple describes Lauridsen as "the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic, [whose] probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefinable ingredient which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered...From 1993 Lauridsen's music rapidly increased in international popularity, and by century's end he had eclipsed Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American choral composer." In his preface to the score ofLux Aeterna, Lauridsen writes that "each of the five movements in this cycle contains references to Light assembled from various Latin texts." In a 2003 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lauridsen offered that he "regards light as a symbol of hope and reassurance," and these qualities shine forth in the lush, even sensuous harmonies of Lux Aeterna. The NYCS has performed Lux Aeterna three times: at Riverside Church in May 2004, and twice more the following July while on tour in France at Chartres and in the eleventh-century basilica of Saint Remi in Reims.
Charles Ives’ Psalm 90. In the history of American music, there is perhaps no more idiosyncratic composer than Charles Ives. Always a free thinker, Ives quickly developed a reputation for eccentricity. He wrote polytonal and polymetrical works long before such techniques were understood, and his use of tone clusters was astonishing. For example, at one point in his setting of Psalm 90 Ives has the chorus begin a phrase on a unison middle C and then expand in both directions to a 22-note cluster spanning two and a half octaves, only to collapse back to the original unison. Psalm 90 is one of the few compositions that satisfied Ives, a work in which he believed his aims to be fully realized. The final section of this ten-minute work is possessed of a breathtaking serenity; in his final performance as Music Director of the NYCS, Mr. Goodwin has chosen to invite all alumni of the NYCS onto the Carnegie Hall stage to join in singing these transcendent final minutes of what is one of Ives' greatest masterpieces. The NYCS has performed Psalm 90 three times since 1976, once each in Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall.
Photo: Erin Baiano
National Arts Club
March 29, 2012 at 5:59 PM
You are cordially invited to the
New York Choral Society’s Spring Gala
Outstanding Leadership Award
John Daly Goodwin
Celebrating Maestro Goodwin's 25th Anniversary
as Music Director
Distinguished Service to Music Award
Laura R. Walker
President and CEO of New York Public Radio
Corporate Award
The Capital Group Companies
This year's Gala will be held at
The National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South
New York, NY 10003
Tel. (212) 475-3424
Cocktail reception 6:00 PM
Dinner and awards 7:00 PM
Dessert reception and entertainment
following dinner
Festive Attire * Silent Auction
Previous Award Recipients
Harry Belafonte
Robert De Cormier
Steven Mercurio
Francisco J. Núñez
Stephen Paulus
Eve Queler
Haruko Smith
Barry Tucker
Gala Leadership Committee
Michael F. Colosi, Esq.,
Edith DuPuy
John Daly Goodwin
Joanne W. Lawson
Gary K. Pai
Susan A. Seigle
Founded in 1958, the New York Choral Society is proud to celebrate its 53rd anniversary. We are a 180-voice chorus of professional-caliber volunteer singers whose mission is to enrich the cultural life of the New York community.
Brahms A German Requiem Summer Sing
Peter Norton Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
August 24, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Brahms A German Requiem
Clara Longstreth, Conductor
New Amsterdam Singers
This expansive piece demands excessive quantities of passion and drama, angst and sweetness, and power and intimacy. In a letter to Brahms, Clara Schumann wrote, “It is a truly tremendous piece of art which moves the entire being in a way little else does.”
Clara Longstreth is music director and founder of the critically acclaimed New Amsterdam Singers. The New Yorker has called her “one of the most imaginative choral programmers around.” “She has a knack for putting together rewarding programs that mix the old and the new, the familiar and unfamiliar.” (The New York Times).
Carmina Burana and Beethoven Symphony No. 9 Summer Sing
Peter Norton Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
August 17, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Orff Carmina Burana
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (choral)
Malcolm Merriweather, Conductor
New York Choral Society
Rollicking fun will be had during the Carmina Burana as we sing these 23 songs of defrocked, and frequently inebriated,monks. The rhythmic music is catchy and the vocal lines so expressive and dramatic they beg for your attention. A favorite of singers and audiences. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is one of the best-known works of theWestern classical repertoire. It is considered by critics to be one of Beethoven’s masterpieces and one of the greatest musical compositions ever written.
Malcolm Merriweather, the young and talented assistant conductor of the New York Choral Society and conductor of the New York Choral Society Chamber Singers, is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he earned master’s degrees in choral conducting and vocal performance.
Verdi Requiem Summer Sing
Peter Norton Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
August 3, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Verdi Requiem
Nelly Vuksic, Conductor
Brooklyn Conservatory Chorale, The Americas Vocal Ensemble
Frequently called “Verdi’s greatest opera,” the Requiem surges with emotion and passion. From the vision of wrath in the Dies Irae to the beatific closing lines, the work is not to be missed. The premiere in 1874 was a triumph.
Nelly Vuksic, music director of the Brooklyn Conservatory Chorale, has conducted extensively in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. She is also founder and music director of The Americas Vocal Ensemble, a professional chamber group whose mission is to foster understanding among the people of the Americas.
Bach Mass in B minor Summer Sing
Peter Norton Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
July 27, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Bach Mass in B minor
Patrick Gardner, Conductor
Riverside Choral Society
The Bach Mass in B minor was pronounced “the greatest artwork of all times and all people” by the nineteenth-century editor Hans Georg Nägeli. Today, it is widely hailed as a monumental work of the late baroque period and is performed frequently in the world’s leading concert halls.
Now in his 21st season as music director of the Riverside Choral Society, Patrick Gardner is also director of choral activities at Rutgers University, where he conducts the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir and the Rutgers University Glee Club.
Mozart Mass in C minor Summer Sing
Peter Norton Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
August 10, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Mozart Mass in C minor
Francisco Núñez, Conductor
Young People’s Chorus of New York City
In a letter to his father, Mozart alluded to a vow he had made “in the depth of his heart” to write a work of thanksgiving for the recovery from illness of his (then) fiancée Constanze, also mentioning that the work was already half finished. This unfinished mass is a major milestone of Mozart’s works.
The composer, conductor, and pianist Francisco Núñez is the founder and artistic director of the award-winning Young People’s Chorus of New York City, in residence at the 92nd Street Y. He also serves as the conductor of the University Glee Club of New York City, a 150-member male chorus founded in 1896.