Chorus pro Musica Holiday Concert
| Hours: | 8:00 PM |
| Ages: | Kids, Teens, Adults |
| In/Outdoor: | Indoor |
| Cost: | $$ see below |
| Category: | Music & Concerts |
Featuring Ottorino Respighi’s
Lauda per la Natività del Signore (Laud to the Nativity)
at Old South Church, Friday, December 16 at 8 PM
Chorus pro Musica, Boston’s historic chorus known for its continuing tradition of excellence under the leadership of Music Director Betsy Burleigh, proudly presents its annual Holiday Celebration Friday, December 16, 2011 at 8:00 pm in Old South Church [Copley Square, 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116].
Concert tickets for the December 16, 2011 performance at Old South Church are $25, $35 and $45, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. Reserved seats may be selected and tickets purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276). For wheelchair-accessible seats, call 617-267-7442.
The Chorus’s Holiday Celebration will feature Ottorino Respighi’s (1879-1936), Lauda per la Natività del Signore (Laud to the Nativity), a beautiful pastoral cantata that depicts the birth of Jesus as the shepherds might have seen it. Written in 1930, the work is set for chorus with vocal soloists, a small wind ensemble (two flutes, piccolo, oboe, English horn, two bassoons), triangle, and piano (four hands). Soloists are soprano Kathy Linger (representing an Angel), mezzo-soprano Majie Zeller (as Mary), and tenor Gregory Zavracky (as a Shepherd).
Lauda per la Natività del Signore is based on a 13th century Umbrian poem attributed to Jacopone da Todi, a devout Franciscan friar known for his laudi (songs of praise) in the Italian vernacular and for his pioneering dramatic works that depicted Gospel subjects. In setting the poem, Respighi used ancient forms like madrigals and plainchant to convey its spirit of timeless simplicity, but also incorporated vivid modern harmonies and the beautiful orchestral colors for which he is justly famous. The cantata contains some challenging a cappella passages for the chorus, which is divided at times in from four to eight parts. The men of the chorus sometimes sing a cappella as the shepherds of the Nativity story, while the women represent an angelic chorus. Respighi’s genius for orchestration is wonderfully evident in this piece, as is his great aptitude for evoking time and place with harmonies, dynamics, and rhythm. The whole is a magnificent evocation of the Advent scene, from the shepherds on the plains to angels and mankind’s amazed joy.
Anders Öhrwall‘s choral composition Gaudete will also be featured on this holiday program. Öhrwall is a Swedish conductor who has been the Director of Music at Stockholm’s famous The Church of Adolf Fredrik since 1962. He also founded the Stockholm Bach Choir in 1964. Öhrwall has also directed the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Chorus, the Swedish Radio Choir and (early in the ‘90s) the Phoenix Bach Choir, based in Arizona. “A musician's musician,” his choral adaptations of innumerable Baroque pieces and music of traditional origin have gained immense popularity. Anders Öhrwall is a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and in 1987 received the Litteris et Artibus award.
Traditional holiday carols and other works on this program will be announced shortly.
About the soloists:
SOPRANO KATHY LINGER is originally from Parkersburg, West Virginia and graduated from the University of Illinois in 2003 with a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance. Concentrating on Baroque performance practice, she completed her dissertation on “The Sacred Cantatas Judith and Suzanne of Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre: An Analysis of Vocal Ornamentation with Application to French Baroque Performance Practice.”
Singing repertoire spanning baroque to 21st-century music, her passion for early music has brought critics to hail her voice as “a singular talent that brings the music to life with clarity, sensitivity and thrilling coloratura.” Under the musical direction of Donald Nally, she has appeared for five seasons at the Il Festival dei Due Monde, Spoleto, Italy working with world-renowned 20th century late composer, Gian Carlo Menotti. Spoleto main stage productions included Wozzeck, Carmen, Les mamelle de Tirésias, The Saint of Bleeker Street, Die Tote Stadt, and Eugene Onegin. Linger also works regularly with Pittsburgh’s Mendelssohn Choir, where Dr. Betsy Burleigh is also Music Director and Conductor.
TENOR GREGORY ZAVRACKY is enjoying an active performance schedule as a promising young tenor. Recent engagements include Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville with Townsend Opera, Ferrando in Così Fan Tutte and Camille in The Merry Widow with Cape Cod Opera, Ernesto in Don Pasquale with Opera in the Heights in Houston, Gherardo in Gianni Schicchi and Buoso’s Ghost with Lake George Opera, Tamino in Boston Lyric Opera’s family production of The Magic Flute, Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola with Capitol Heights Lyric Opera, and Prince Dauntless in Once Upon a Mattress and Schmidt in Werther with Chautauqua Opera, where he also covered Nemorino in the Elixir of Love. Other roles include Ralph Rackstraw, Box in Cox & Box, Aeneas, Don Basilio and Don Curzio in Le Nozze di Figaro and Miguel in Illusions.
Gregory received his Bachelor of Arts in music from Emory University, and two Master of Music degrees from New England Conservatory in voice performance and opera studies as a student of Edward Zambara. At NEC, he performed the roles of Tamino in the Magic Flute, the title role in Candide, Martin in The Tender Land, Larry/Matt in The Face on the Barroom Floor, Mayor Upfold in Albert Herring, and Franco Laspiga in the premiere of Dan Shore’s Works of Mercy. With the Contemporary Ensemble, Gregory performed Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, Stravinsky’s In Memoriam: Dylan Thomas, and worked with John Harbison in a concert of selected arias from The Great Gatsby.
MEZZO-SOPRANO MAJIE ZELLER has received critical praise for the 'opulent tone' and 'warmth of expression' she brings to her performances as a soloist in opera and oratorio, as well as in contemporary and chamber music.
Her operatic credits include the title role in Rossini's La Cenerentola with the Michigan Opera Theatre touring company, the Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte with Granite State Opera, and the Third Lady with Monadnock Music, as well as Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Dorabella in Cosí fan tutte, Nicklausse in Tales of Hoffman, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, and Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus. She made her Boston Lyric Opera debut in 2000 as one of Akhnaten's daughters in Philip Glass's Akhnaten, and has returned as Butterfly's Aunt in Madama Butterfly and in several roles in Tod Machover's Resurrection.Last season she was featured as Nancy T'ang in Opera Boston's highly acclaimed production of Nixon in China.
Noted for her oratorio performances in both mezzo and soprano roles, Majie has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cantata Singers, Emmanuel Music and many other choruses and orchestras in works ranging from Schütz to John Harbison. The last several seasons have included her 'vibrant' performance in last fall's East Coast premiere of Harbison's Four Psalms, the Bach St. Matthew Passion, B Minor Mass, and Magnificat with the Cantata Singers under David Hoose, as well as appearances as cantata soloist with Emmanuel Music under Craig Smith, and Copland's In the Beginning with the Brookline Chorus under William Cutter. She has also been featured in the Requiems of Mozart and Durufle, Handel's Messiah, Mozart's Vesperae solennes de confessore, and the Mozart Mass in C Minor Mass in the original Latin as well as with Lorenzo Da Ponte's Italian text, Davidde penitente. Twice a vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, she has presented premieres of works by several American composers, including James Yannatos' Death Songs and Amazing Grace, Bret L. Silverman's The Tree of Life with PALS under Johanna Hill Simpson, and John McDonald's set of songs, A Tale of Jack & Jill. She has also sung Arvo Pärt's Stabat Mater with Emmanuel Music under Craig Smith, and presented Schoenberg's seminal 30-minute twelve tone song cycle, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, at Tanglewood. She is the soprano soloist on the recording of John Harbison's Four Psalms on New World Records (released 2004).
| COST | ↑ top |
$25, $35 and $45, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors
| WEBSITE | ↑ top |
| LOCATION | ↑ top |
645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, 02116 map
Phone: 800-658-4276
Old South Church [Copley Square, 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116]
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