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The Worcester Chorus: Bach B Minor Mass

Sunday, May 5, 2024 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Adult: $45-$55 
Student: $17.50
Youth: $7.50
Mechanics Hall logo

PRE-CONCERT TALK
Richard Giarusso, Dean of Academic Affairs at New England Conservatory

3:00 PM in Washburn Hall
Free and open to all ticket holders

Music Worcester thanks the following sponsors of this presentation:

Mass Cultural Council logo
Mass Cultural Council logo

The Annual Fletcher Family Concert

Directed by Chris Shepard, The Worcester Chorus is one of America’s oldest and longest-running choral ensembles.

Initially delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, their long-awaited performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor will take place on stage at historic Mechanics Hall in the 2023-2024 Season.

For this performance, The Worcester Chorus will be joined by the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music and vocal soloists. All ticket holders are invited to join us for a Pre-Concert Talk from Richard Giarusso, Dean of Academic Affairs at New England Conservatory, at 3:00 PM in Washburn Hall. Read more about each ensemble, soloist, and speaker below:

The Orchestra of Emmanuel Music

Through its performing, teaching, mentoring, and scholarly activities, Emmanuel Music occupies a unique niche: a living laboratory for the music of J. S. Bach. Emmanuel Music finds new and creative ways for audiences and musicians to engage with the artistic, spiritual, and humanistic aspects of the music of J. S. Bach, the cornerstone of our musical output for our first fifty years.

We seek to make Bach’s music deeply relevant to our current lives, including highlighting the connections between Bach and artists that he influenced, especially creative voices that have been marginalized in our society.

Building on the symbiotic partnership between an arts nonprofit and an intellectually curious and open-minded religious community, Emmanuel Music further embraces Bach’s sacred music, especially his cantatas, as opportunities to explore the transcendent aspects of our shared human experience.

By embracing a new mission and strategic plan in March 2021, Emmanuel Music asserts its role as an essential musical, humanistic, intellectual force for participatory engagement in its local community, and around the world through its online programming.

Susan Consoli, soprano

American Soprano, Susan Consoli, originally from Groveland, MA, has led an active and versatile career throughout the United States and abroad.

She has worked under such notable conductors as Grant Llewellyn, Christopher Hogwood, Harry Christophers, Bruno Weil, Laurence Cummings, John Finney and Paul Goodwin. Additional collaborators include; Chen Shi-Zheng, Tero Saarinen, Betsi Graves, Carson Cooman, Euan Tait, Peter Child, David Patterson and John Harbison (Boston Premiere) A Clear Midnight, Vocalism and Jazzsinger songs. Festivals include: Festival CLASSIQUE au vert Paris, Boston Early Music Festival, Movimentos Internationales TanzFestival, LAOKOON Festival, Hamburg, Ribeauvillé Festival de Musique Ancienne, Carmel Bach Festival, Rome Opera Festival, Great Waters Music Festival, CT Early Music Festival, Nantucket Arts Festival, Bachfest Leipzig, Marlboro Music Festival. Appearances with Boston Camerata & Tero Saarinen Dance Company include: Borrowed Light in Paris Théâtre National de Chaillot, Berlin, Hamburg, Wolfsburg, Oulu, Tampere, An American Vocalist, Saw ye my hero in Paris, Travellin’ Home in Ribeauvillé.

Ms. Consoli made her Carnegie Hall debut performing Handel Messiah under the direction of Christopher Shepard. Her recordings include Handel & Haydn Society All is Bright Avie Records and David Patterson Loon’s Tail Flashing Albany Records. Upcoming solo engagements include: “J’Adore Fauré” with the Hartford Chorale under the direction of Jack Anthony Pott, Bachfest Leipzig 2024 with Emmanuel Music, Bach St. Matthew Passion with Emmanuel Music both under the direction of Ryan Turner, and Mozart Solemn Vespers with New England Classical Singers. Ms. Consoli is pleased to be returning to the Worcester Chorus under the direction of Chris Shepard.

Kendra Colton, soprano

American soprano Kendra Colton is a versatile singer who performs repertoire from Baroque opera and oratorio to contemporary music. Trained in the United States and Europe she appears regularly in solo recital, in chamber music concerts, and with symphony orchestras. She has sung with conductors Bernard Haitink, Christopher Hogwood, Sir Neville Marriner, Nicholas McGegan, Seiji Ozawa, and Helmuth Rilling
and with presenters across the country including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to name a few. Her singing has been described as “touchingly musical” in the NY Times and “skillful and imaginative” in the Boston Globe. Opera News wrote that Ms. Colton is a soprano who sings “with beauty, brightness and poise”.

Ms. Colton has developed a niche for herself in the oratorio and sacred works of Bach (recording 6 CDs of cantata arias and duets), Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Acclaimed not only for her performances of Handel and Mozart operas, she is also recognized as an interpreter of contemporary chamber music and has premiered and recorded numerous works including a release of vocal selections by John Harbison called Late Air. Her complete discography can be found on Spotify. Works specifically composed for her voice are: Finite Infinity for soprano, oboe, and piano by Peter Child; Uncertainty is Beautiful for soprano and chamber orchestra and The Reckless Heart for soprano and piano by Andy Vores.

In addition to her performing schedule, Ms. Colton commutes from Boston to teach at Oberlin College Conservatory in Ohio. In her free time she is an avid hiker and has a life goal to visit all of the National Parks.

Krista River, alto

Mezzo-soprano Krista River has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Cape Cod Symphony, the Santa Fe Symphony, Handel & Haydn Society, the Florida Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, Odyssey Opera, Baltimore Choral Arts Society, and Boston Baroque.

Winner of the 2004 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and a 2007 Sullivan Foundation grant recipient, her opera roles include Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Anna in Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins, Nancy in Britten’s Albert Herring, and the title role in Handel’s Xerxes.

Other notable performances include the International Water and Life Festival in Qinghai, China, and recitals at Jordan Hall in Boston and the Asociación Nacional de Conciertos in Panama City, Panama. For Ms. River’s New York Recital debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the New York Times praised her “shimmering voice…with the virtuosity of a violinist and the expressivity of an actress.” She resides in Boston and is a regular soloist with Emmanuel Music’s renowned Bach Cantata Series.

Matthew Anderson, tenor

Matthew Anderson has been praised for the warm tenor voice and polished musicality he brings to oratorio, opera, and musical theater. He has appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival as a soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and at the Carmel Bach Festival, where he was featured as a 2010 Virginia Best Adams Fellow and a 2011 festival soloist in Bach’s St. John Passion. Mr. Anderson has twice won prizes in the American Bach Society Competition, and received second prize in the Oratorio Society of New York Solo Competition.

Recent performances from his varied repertoire include Stravinsky’s Renard at Tanglewood and the Mostly Mozart Festival with the Mark Morris Dance Group; John Harbison’s Winter’s Tale with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Haydn’s Creation with Emmanuel Music; Bach’s St. John Passion (Evangelist) at Princeton University, Boston University, and the University of Chicago; several works by Benjamin Britten (Serenade, Saint Nicolas, and Cantata Misericordium); John Austin’s new opera Heloise and Abelard at Harvard University; and Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall.

Also recognized as a gifted performer of the American songbook, Mr. Anderson has won high praise for his performances with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops in Carousel (as Mr. Snow), “A Richard Rogers Celebration”, and “An Evening of Cole Porter”. Mr. Anderson spent two seasons as a vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and was a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow with Emmanuel. He studied classics at Harvard and voice at the New England Conservatory.

David McFerrin, bass

Hailed for his “voice of seductive beauty” (Miami Herald), baritone David McFerrin has won critical acclaim in a variety of genres. His opera credits include Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Florida Grand Opera, the Rossini Festival in Germany, and numerous roles with Boston Lyric Opera and other local companies. As concert soloist he has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Handel and Haydn Society, and in recital at the Caramoor, Ravinia, and Marlboro Festivals. He was runner-up in the Oratorio Society of New York’s 2016 Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition, the premier US contest for this repertoire. David is also a member of the renaissance vocal ensemble Blue Heron, winners of the 2018 Gramophone award for Best Early Music Album.

Recent performance highlights have included the role of Thoas in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride with Boston Baroque; Monteverdi’s dramatic scena Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with American Bach Soloists in the Bay Area; and two turns as Lucifer/the Devil––one in a filmed production of Handel’s La Resurrezione with Emmanuel Music and the other in Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale” with Aston Magna Music Festival.

David lives in Natick, Massachusetts with his wife Erin Doherty, an architectural historian and preservation planner; their daughter Fiona; and black lab Holly.

Richard Giarusso, Pre-Concert Speaker

Richard Giarusso is a teacher, performer, speaker, and writer who seeks to build meaning, relationship, and understanding through the study, contemplation, and performance of music. With practical and scholarly experience in a wide range of repertoire, he seeks to engage audiences of diverse backgrounds and interests in dynamic conversations about music and its relationship to history, culture, and creativity.

He has a particular interest in interdisciplinary dialogues about music and the arts and takes great pleasure in crafting experiences that stimulate creative thinking and critical awareness among participants. An award-winning teacher and visionary academic leader, he is Dean of Academic Affairs at the New England Conservatory and was previously Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Musicology at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Also active as a conductor and singer, he served as music director of the Georgetown Chorale (DC), the Voce Chamber Singers (VA), and the Maryland Choral Society, and he maintains a career as a soloist and ensemble musician throughout the Atlantic corridor.

He has a particular affinity for the vocal works of J.S. Bach, having sung for many years as a member of the Washington Bach Consort, where he also appeared as a guest conductor. Trained at Williams and Harvard, Richard is a life-long learner shaped by the guidance and inspiration of exceptional mentors who modeled the patterns of inquiry and exploration that he seeks to uphold in his life and work. His non-musical interests include architecture and interior design, traditional French cookery, woodworking, Anglican spirituality, and the beauties of the natural world. He resides in Acton, Massachusetts, with his wife, Allison, his eight-year-old son, Adrian, and three very curious cats.

John Zeugner, Telegram & Gazette

In any event, there was, as always, in Music Worcester’s presentation of Handel’s Messiah, a soul healing, community-building moment, for all listeners. The stupendous sounds of that music in the soft blue-white silk of Mechanics Hall, amid dark almost indistinguishable portraits on high, is surely tonic to overcome the despicable antics of our national politics.

Details

Date:
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Time:
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Event Categories:
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Venue

Mechanics Hall
321 Main Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01608
Phone
508-799-1463
View Venue Website

Organizer

Music Worcester