Bach Christmas Oratorio

Under the baton of Artistic Director Chris Shepard and Assistant Director & Accompanist Mark Mummert, The Worcester Chorus of Music Worcester numbers approximately 100 professional and amateur singers who perform several times each year, primarily as part of Music Worcester’s season, including an annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. Their repertoire also includes other classical choral pieces, opera, musical theater, American folk songs, and more.

The Worcester Chorus is a key component of THE COMPLETE BACH, Music Worcester’s 11-year project to present all of J.S. Bach’s known works, which concludes in March 2035. A subset of the group, the Worcester Chorus Women’s Ensemble (dir. Mark Mummert) is also featured in the Music Worcester season.

Learn more and see their full schedule.

Since 2016, the Winchendon Music Festival (WMF) has built a series of local, national, and international artists spanning several genres—classical, folk, jazz, world, and more. Multi-instrumentalist, Andrew Arceci has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Recording credits include APM Music/Juice Music, Cedille Records, Centaur Records, Music & Arts, NPR, PRI, Silent Witness––television series by BBC One (UK), BBC Radio 3 (UK), Novum (UK), Bôłt Records/Monotype Records (Poland), Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (Germany), and Deutschlandradio (Germany). He has taught at several institutions, including Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College (Director, Collegium Musicum), and Worcester State University. Additionally, he has given lectures, masterclasses, and/or workshops at Illinois Wesleyan University, the International Baroque Institute at Longy (Bard College), the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, the Narnia Arts Academy (Italy), Institutum Romanum Finlandiae (Italy), Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan), and Burapha University (Thailand). Arceci was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies during the 2019-2020 academic year.

Claire Fontijn is Phyllis Henderson Carey Professor of Music at Wellesley College. In 2007, she won the Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Classical Music Biography from ASCAP/Deems Taylor for her monograph Desperate Measures: The Life and Music of Antonia Padoani Bembo. In addition to a second book on Hildegard of Bingen’s Vision of Music, she edited two volumes: Fiori Musicali with Susan Parisi, and Uncovering Music of Early European Women. She enjoys giving pre-concert lectures, most notably for the Boston Early Music Festival, Handel and Haydn Society, Cappella Clausura, and numerous gatherings of Wellesley College Alumnae.

Charles Blandy has been praised as “unfailingly, tirelessly lyrical” (Boston Globe); “fearless” (New York Times); “a versatile tenor with agility, endless breath, and vigorous high notes” (Goldberg Early Music Magazine); and for his “clear, focused, gorgeous tenor voice” (Worcester Telegram and Gazette).

He makes his Boston Symphony Orchestra/Carnegie Hall debut in 2024 in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. He is a core member of Emmanuel Music, and regularly appears in their ongoing Bach Cantata series. With Emmanuel he performed at BachFest Leipzig; and has sung the Evangelist in Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions, and lead roles in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute, and Handel’s Ariodante.

He has performed Bach’s B minor mass with Orchestra Iowa; the Apollo Chorus of Chicago; and the American Classical Orchestra (NYC) at Lincoln Center. He sang Handel’s Messiah with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, Vespers of 1610, L’Orfeo, and assorted madrigals with Boston Early Music Festival; Messiah and St. Matthew Passion with the American Bach Soloists (SF, CA). He has appeared with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Music of the Baroque (Chicago), Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Charlotte Symphony.

He gave the US premiere of Gerald Barry’s Canada at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. With Boston Modern Orchestra Project he recorded Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories; and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts. With Collage New Music he recorded Rodney Lister’s chamber song cycle Friendly Fire, and gave the US premiere of Rautavaara’s song cycle Die Liebenden.

A recitalist of wide repertoire, he has performed Schubert’s Schwanengesang at the Token Creek Festival (WI) and at Tufts University; Winterreise at Tufts; Auf dem Strom and Brahms songs with Boston Chamber Music Society; and songs of Finzi and Janacek’s Diary of One Who Disappeared at Monadnock Music (NH). He gave recitals of contemporary American songs in New York, Boston, London and Manchester UK, with Rodney Lister at the piano. Charles Blandy is a member of Beyond Artists, a coalition that supports good causes through their work. He studied at Oberlin College, Indiana University, and Tanglewood Music Center. He is the product of a strong public school arts program in Troy NY.

Kevin Deas has gained international renown as one of America’s leading bass-baritones. He is perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title role in Porgy and Bess, having performed it with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, as well as the most illustrious orchestras on the North American continent, and at the Ravinia, Vail and Saratoga festivals.

Kevin Deas’ 2023-24 season includes performances of Mozart’s Requiem with the Vermont Symphony and Mobile Symphony, Handel’s Messiah with the North Carolina Symphony, National Cathedral, Houston Symphony, and the NAC Orchestra in Ottawa. Other notable performances in the season include a Gershwin program with Oregon Symphony and Rochester Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Pacific Symphony, Brahms’s German Requiem with Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and will be performing the role of Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Boston Baroque, as well as the role of Dick Hallorann in Paul Moravec’s critically acclaimed opera The Shining with the Opera Atlanta. Other recent highlights include performances with New York Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Portland Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Phoenix Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Omaha Symphony, and Jacksonville Symphony.

A proponent of contemporary music, Kevin Deas has performed Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors at Italy’s Spoleto Festival, Derek Bermel’s The Good Life with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and Hannibal Lokumbe’s Dear Mrs. Parks with the Detroit Symphony. He also enjoyed a twenty-year collaboration with the late jazz legend Dave Brubeck.

Kevin Deas has recorded Wagner’s Die Meistersinger (Decca/London) with the Chicago Symphony under Sir Georg Solti and Varèse’s Ecuatorial with the ASKO Ensemble under Riccardo Chailly. Other releases include Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Vox Classics); Dave Brubeck’s To Hope! with the Cathedral Choral Society (Telarc); Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Virginia Symphony and Boston Baroque (Linn Records); and Dvorák in America (Naxos).

Praised for her “versatile voice” and “rich character portrayals,” mezzo-soprano Megan Roth brings vibrant artistry and emotional depth to every performance. She engages audiences across opera, oratorio, art song, and chamber music, with a repertoire spanning early music to contemporary works. Recent operatic highlights include three role debuts with activist opera company White Snake Projects, a dramatic portrayal of La mort de Cléopâtre with the New England Repertory Orchestra, and acclaimed performances as Tisbe in La Cenerentola and Despina in Così fan tutte with Boston Midsummer Opera. Other roles include Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Meg (Little Women), and Dorabella (Così fan tutte), as well as appearances in Maria Padilla, Béatrice et Bénédict, Trouble in Tahiti, and Giulio Cesare.

On the concert stage, Megan has appeared as soloist in Copland’s In the Beginning, Handel’s Messiah, and Handel’s Dixit Dominus. Her repertoire includes major works by Bach, Mozart, de Falla, and Duruflé. Megan is the founder and artistic director of Calliope’s Call, a New England-based ensemble known for its innovative, culturally resonant art song programming. She also thrives in chamber music settings, performing regularly with top national ensembles including the GRAMMY®- nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Yale Choral Artists, Spire Chamber Artists, Upper Valley Baroque, and True Concord. She was featured as a violin soloist on Skylark’s GRAMMY®- nominated album It’s a Long Way. She holds degrees from Florida State University (M.M., Artist Certificate in Opera) and DePaul University (B.M. in Violin Performance with honor), and has been recognized by The American Prize in multiple categories.

Outside of music, Megan enjoys yoga, contemporary fiction, and kayaking with her husband and their Boston Terriers, Bronx and Brooklyn.

Now in his sixteenth year as Artistic Director of the Worcester Chorus, Chris also serves as conductor of the Connecticut Choral Artists (CONCORA), Connecticut’s oldest professional choir. In May 2024, Chris launched THE COMPLETE BACH, a 132-concert project to present live performances of all of J.S. Bach’s works for the first time ever in America. This monumental undertaking, under the auspices of Music Worcester, was inspired by Chris’s BACH2010 project, in which his Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra performed all of Bach’s choral cantatas in Sydney, Australia. THE COMPLETE BACH brings together local ensembles as well as internationally recognized performers such as pianists Jeremy Denk and Simone Dinnerstein, and Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music.

His musical interests hardly stop in the eighteenth century, however. Chris has conducted much of the most prominent largescale choral-orchestral repertoire, including major works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Poulenc, and Britten; a career highlight was the 2022 performance by the Worcester and Masterwork Choruses of Verdi’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall. He has also performed many works by contemporary composers and has premiered works by such composers as Ricky Ian Gordon, Gwyneth Walker, Martin Sedek, Robert Convery, Anna K Jacobs, and Amy Bernon. His choirs have collaborated with a number of orchestras, such as the Juilliard Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, in venues that include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall in New York, as well as the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Chris has prepared choirs for major international conductors, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Simone Young, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and William Boughton, as well as for Broadway legend Patti Lupone and Ray Davies of the Kinks. For a decade, Chris was conductor of the Masterwork Chorus in New Jersey, with whom he performed Handel’s Messiah annually at Carnegie Hall; he also led the Dessoff Choir in New York City from 2010 to 2016. Chris made his conducting debut with the New Haven Symphony in 2015.

A committed music educator, Chris has served on the faculty of the Taft School, Sydney Grammar School, Hotchkiss Summer Portals, and Holy Cross College. He founded the Litchfield County Children’s Choir in 1990, and has conducted numerous middle and high school regional and All-State choirs in New England, New York and Australia. He presented two documentaries with SBS-TV, an Australian national public television network, and has given several presentations at conferences for American Choral Directors Association and Australian National Kodàly Association. Chris has been a guest conductor at Emmanuel Church in Boston, a church renowned for its five-decade Bach cantata project, and he currently serves as Music Director of St John’s Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut.

A pianist and keyboard continuist, Chris holds degrees from the Hartt School, the Yale School of Music (where he studied choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks) and the University of Sydney. He researched the performance history of Bach’s B Minor Mass in New York City for his PhD in Musicology; his dissertation won the American Choral Directors Association’s 2012 Julius Herford Prize for outstanding doctoral thesis in choral music.