The Worcester Chorus perform Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op. 45
Christopher Shepard, Artistic Director, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Baritone Soloist, Holy Cross College Choir, Festival Orchestra
Friday, April 9, 2010
Mechanics Hall - 8 PM Performance
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Overview
The Worcester Chorus celebrates their 150th Anniversary Season with this very special performance of one of the most profound European works of choral art ever penned. The chorus is proud to announce that the exciting baritone soloist Teddy Tahu Rhodes, soprano soloist Maria Ferrante, as well as the distinguished performance choir from Worcester's College of the Holy Cross, and the will be joining them on stage at Mechanics Hall, along with the Festival Orchestra, all under the baton of Artistic Director Christopher Shepard.
When the Worcester Music Festival was founded, Johannes Brahms was only 25 years old. A decade later, he finished his German Requiem. A work of great power and beauty, the Requiem sets biblical texts in German rather than the ancient Latin rite.
TICKETS: $37, $34, students $20 advance.
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STUDENT "RUSH" SEATING AVAILABLE AT DOOR THE EVENING OF PERFORMANCE: $15 WITH STUDENT I.D.
The Worcester Chorus proved to be genuine masters of the choral art as they presented a sensational concert - Telegram and Gazette
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Program
150 YEARS OF COMFORT
Part One: The Old Becomes New
Richte mich, Gott Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47)
Pamela Mindell, Conductor
Domine à 4 Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85)
Suite Modale Flor Peeters (1903-86)
Koraal, Scherzo, Aria, Toccata
Ian Watson, Organ
Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945)
Maria Ferrante, Soprano
INTERMISSION
Part Two: The Brahms Requiem
Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45 Johannes Brahms (1833-97)
I. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen
II. Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras
III. Herr, lehre doch mich
IV. Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
V. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit
VI. Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt
VII. Selig sind die Toten
Maria Ferrante, Soprano and Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Baritone
About the Artists
The Worcester Chorus, under the sponsorship of Music Worcester Inc., has the unique distinction of being one of the most outstanding ongoing choral groups in the United States having been founded in 1858 for the purpose of performing in the first annual Worcester Music Festival held in the newly built Mechanics Hall. During its rich history, the Chorus has performed with a variety symphony orchestras, including appearances with the Prague Symphony in Carnegie Hall (1985), the Hartford Symphony (1994) and, most recently (2006), a performance of the Verdi Requiem with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.
The Chorus has toured internationally as well, including:Mexico and the Oaxaca Spring Festival (1983), The British Isles and the Strathclyde Festival (1986), Switzerland, Italy and Yugoslavia (1990), Austria for the Salzburg Music Festival (1994), St. Petersburg and Pushkin, and Scandinavia (1998).
The Chorus traditionally performs four concerts each year as part of the Worcester Music Festival, including Messiah in December. Repertoire includes the greatest choral masterpieces, as well as works by contemporary composers and arrangements of American folk songs and classics from the musical theater.
The Worcester Chorus includes both amateur and professional musicians with the primary mission to foster the choral arts and enhance the cultural life of Worcester and the surrounding area. We endeavor to provide the highest level of musicianship and artistry, resulting in an enriching and emotional experience for both the audience and singers.
New Zealand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes has established an impressive international career. He sings a 
wide-ranging repertoire, notable for several world and Australian premiere performances, including his award-winning performance as Joe in the opera "Dead Man Walking". He guests frequently with opera companies in the USA (Washington, Philadelphia, Houston, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and Dallas), in Europe (Hamburg, Munich, Paris, Vienna), in the UK (Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera), as well as with Opera Australia.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes studied with Mary Adams Taylor, winning, at the age of twenty, the Dame Sister Mary Leo Scholarship as New Zealand’s most promising singer. In 1991, he was awarded the Mobil Song Quest, enabling him to continue his studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and subsequently with David Harper. Whilst resident in the UK, Teddy Tahu Rhodes was a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Award, and performed in recital as part of the Young Songmakers Almanac Concert Series, directed by Graham Johnson. In 1998, he made his debut as Dandini (La Cenerentola) with Opera Australia and in 1999 sang Sharpless (Madama Butterfly) with Canterbury Opera, Marcello (La Bohème) and Silvio (I Pagliacci) for Opera New Zealand. He represented New Zealand in the 1999 Cardiff Singer of the World competition. His 2000 engagements included his return to Opera Australia as Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro and Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and his debuts with the Sydney Symphony and Queensland Symphony Orchestras. In September 2000, he made a highly successful American debut with San Francisco Opera as Joe in the world premiere of Jake Heggie‘s Dead Man Walking. His most recent recordings include Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and a recital of Mozart arias and he recently filmed The Little Prince for BBC television.
In 2001, he joined Opera Australia as a resident principal artist, performing the roles of Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte), Belcore (L'elisir d'amore), Demetrius and Harlekin (Ariadne auf Naxos). His engagements include Belcore in Philadelphia; Stanley (A Streetcar Named Desire) with Austin Lyric Opera, Washington Opera and the Theater an der Wien; Escamillo (Carmen), Dandini, Don Giovanni, Stanley and Lescaut for Opera Australia; Dead Man Walking for State Opera of South Australia; Marcello and Escamillo in Dallas; the Pilot (Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince), Bendrix (Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair), Count Almaviva and Lescaut (Manon Lescaut) for Houston Grand Opera; Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva and Guglielmo for Cincinnati Opera; Papageno for Welsh National Opera; Escamillo and Henze’s L’Upupa for Hamburg Opera; Escamillo for the Chatelet, Paris and in Munich; and Lescaut in Leipzig. He made his debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in Peter Grimes, at the Santa Fe Opera with his first Billy Budd, and for the New York City Opera as Antony in concert performances of Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. Future engagements include Count Almaviva in Washington, Escamillo in Munich and for the Metropolitan Opera, and his first Scarpia in New Zealand.
“Maria Ferrante broke my heart Sunday night. Or, through her, Puccini's Madama Butterfly did,” wrote Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe in January, 2003. Her “combination of delicacy and intensity. . . brought tears to my eyes. . . In her honesty, imagination, and investment, she was infinitely superior to the last Butterfly I saw at the Met.” The petite soprano’s operatic roles range from the great stage heroines (Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata, Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute, Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello, Liù in Puccini’s Turandot, Rosalinda in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, and Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème) to serving girls (Despina in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Barbarina in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Serpina in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, and in Englebert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel: Gretel, who not only serves, but is served.) “A true singing actress,” Dyer enthused, “her eyes and hands and body know how to sing, and with her voice she can act.” Performing in the trousers role of Oscar in Verdi’s A Masked Ball for Berks Grand Opera, she was acclaimed as “perfect, I doubt if any company anywhere could find one better suited to sing this crucial role.” 
Equally at home on the concert stage, Maria has sung Brahms’ Ein Deutsces Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Poulenc’s Gloria, Faure’s Requiem, Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass, Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Verdi’s Requiem. She has appeared in concert with such world reknowned artists as: Lincoln Mayorga and Gilbert Kalish. Critic Alice Parker wrote that she “handled the wide tessitura, comple lines and German diction [of Berg’s ‘Seven Early Songs’’] with ease, matched by Mr Kalish’s accomplished pianism.” The world’s two most eminent solo clarinetists, Julian Milkis (a Sony recording artist) and Richard Stolzman (who has recorded on all the major labels) have performed with her. Internationally touring solo violinists Ayako Yoshida and Colin Jacobsen, cellist Dorothy Larson (a Deutsche Gramaphon recording artist), and pianists Abba Bogin, Alys Terrien-Queen, and John McGinn have all accompanied Ms Ferrante. Czech prodigy, Miroslav Sekera, the 2002 winner of the Johannes Brahms International Piano Competition in Austria (and 1st prize winner of many other international competitions) has recorded with Maria in Prague, and performed with her in the United States, and the Virgin Islands. American composers Seymour Barab and Sheldon Harnick (who wrote Fiddler on the Roof) have collaborated in performance with her, as has the late Arnold Black, founder of the Mohawk Trail Music Series. All New Englanders will remember Robert J. Lurtsema as the voice of WGBH radio, and some will have had the pleasure of hearing him in concert with Maria. Xavier de Maistre, solo harpist with the Vienna Philharmonic, has accompanied the soprano in concert in New York and (2003) in concerts in the United States and abroad, followed by a recording released in 2004.
Besides her accomplishments singing the familiar, she is also that rare creature, an artist capable of creating brand new roles fresh from the composer’s pen. Drafted by composer Joseph Summer as principal soprano for The Shakespeare Concerts, Maria has introduced Juliet in Gallop Apace, Ophelia in They Bore Him Barefaced, Miranda in If By Your Art My Dearest Father as well as several sonnets and scena in performances and recordings in the United States, Europe, and the Virgin Islands in 2002 and 2003. Commenting on her Virgin Islands premiere of They Bore Him Barefaced, critic Roger Lakins described Maria Ferrante as “a soprano whose love for singing is surpassed only by her love of communicating. She managed to bring the audience into her mood as Ophelia in just a few notes. From then on, they were her fans. A young woman sitting with me confided that she found the Ophelia work haunting, but had to work hard to believe that someone capable of making such beautiful sounds would drown herself. Had the need arisen, there were a few hundred people present who would have rescued her in a heartbeat.” Ferrante’s efforts in the arduous task of premiering new works were applauded by Lakins who wrote of Maria, tenor Alan Schneider, and award winning Czech pianist Miroslav Sekera: “The performers gathered for the evening by the composer are all superb musicians. They approached his works with seriousness and conviction. Throughout the rest of the program, they would make it clear just how fortunate he is to have artists of their caliber as vehicles for his work.” For this season’s The Shakespeare Concerts, she will premiere (and record) here and abroad several new works by Summer, including two more Ophelia songs. Besides her role in The Shakespeare Concerts, Maria has premiered Daniel Pelzig’s Bachiana with the Boston Ballet and the United States première of both the Requiem and Tota Pulchra Es Maria of Jose Nuñes Garcia.
Recent performances have included her appearance in New York with the Ensemble for the Romantic Century in a program of Spanish compositions accompanied by the guitar virtuoso Benjamin Verdery; Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 at New York’s Symphony Space (“sung with sweetness and oxygenated clarity by Maria Ferrante”); as well as performances with the Charleston and Delaware Symphony Orchestras, as featured soloist for BankBoston Showcase Series, The Newton Symphony (MA), The Newtown Chamber Orchestra (CT), Harvard’s Landmark Concerts, the Harvard Musical Association, Orpheus Choir of Hexam (England), The National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC), Kosciusko Foundation(NYC), the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, the Bay Chamber Ensemble, the Boston Chamber Ensemble, and the Great Music Series (Provincetown). An acclaimed regular soloist with the Mohawk Concert Series, she will be appearing for them with the great violinist Arnold Steinhardt in New York City in May, 2003.
Ms. Ferrante’s most recently released CD, Sea Tides and Time received a rave review from the Boston Herald,”[Ms. Ferrante] known for her lilting soprano voice and probing mind… brings a supple and colorful approach to a broad variety of repertoire.” The Boston Globe said:
“Superb.”
Christopher Shepard, Artistic Director of the Worcester Chorus. Founding conductor of the Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra from 2001 to 2008, Chris Shepard was the music director of BACH 2010, a project to perform all of Bach’s choral cantatas. Under his direction the ensemble performed over seventy-five cantatas, as well as the two Passions, B Minor Mass, and Christmas Oratorio. A Sydney reviewer wrote of the cantata series that “these well-attended events, using a fine choir and perceptive soloists, are high points in our musical terrain.” Resident in Sydney for over a decade, Chris also served as Director of Music at Sydney Grammar School, one of Australia’s most prominent high schools.
Before moving to Sydney, Chris led the choral program at the Taft School in Connecticut, where his Collegium Musicum appeared at the 1994 ACDA Eastern Division convention. While teaching at Taft, he conducted many choirs and orchestras in Connecticut, including the Greater Middletown Chorale and Waterbury Chorale. The Litchfield County Children’s Choir, which he founded in 1990, continues to thrive after nearly two decades. Since 2004, Chris has served as Music Director of the Hotchkiss Summer Portals Chamber Music Program, an intensive chamber music program for advanced young players and singers from around the world. He conducts the chamber orchestra and choir, serving on the faculty alongside such guest ensembles as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Shanghai Quartet and the Philadelphia Singers. In February 2009, Chris was guest conductor at Emmanuel Church in Boston, a church renowned for its three-decade Bach cantata project.
Apart from his work with the music of J.S. Bach, Chris has conducted a number of major choral-orchestral works, including Brahms’ German Requiem, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Orff’s Carmina Burana, the Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, Britten’s Saint Nicolas, Mozart’s Requiem and C Minor Mass, Handel’s Judas Maccabeus, the Fauré Requiem, and Monteverdi’s Vespers. With SBS-TV, one of Australia’s two national public television networks, Chris presented two documentaries, on Berstein’s Chichester Psalms and From Mozart to Morrison with eminent Australian jazz musician James Morrison. He has commissioned new works from many composers, including Gwyneth Walker, Erik Nielsen, Amy Bernon, Richard Charlton, Anna Jacobs and Daniel Rojas.
A committed educator for more than two decades, he taught the conducting course in the New South Wales Kodály Institute for more than a decade, and presented workshops and lectures for a number of key music organizations in Australia.
College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA - College Choir, Pamela Getnick Mindell, Director 
The College Choir, comprising about 65 mixed voices, is the College's concert and touring chorus. The Choir meets twice a week for rehearsals and enjoys a diverse repertoire ranging from pieces sung a cappella to major choral masterworks with orchestral accompaniment. Its annual performances include a Holy Cross Family Weekend Concert, Festival of Lessons and Carols, and a spring concert featuring large-scale choral masterpieces. Recent performances include Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, and Vaughan Williams’ powerful and timely Dona nobis pacem. In 2006, the Choir had the opportunity to perform in both Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Chiesa Il Gesu in Rome as part of a concert tour to Italy .
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