medici.tv streams 5 concerts remembering 9/11 on Friday
This Friday, September 9, medici.tv offers listeners worldwide the chance to commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11, when it streams five choral concerts live from downtown Manhattan’s Trinity Wall Street. After September 11, 2001, it was there – just a stone’s throw from Ground Zero – that many sought spiritual refuge. Now, ten years on, the 300-year-old parish church presents five concerts featuring celebrated choirs from New York City, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, and Boston – regions forever linked by the 9/11 attacks – in programs designed to help audiences “Remember to Love.” After taking turns performing throughout the day, the choirs come together for a final concert at 8:30pm, with guest star appearances by Grammy Award-winning violinist Gil Shaham and by rising opera stars Angela Meade, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Luca Pisaroni, who all appear in the Met’s upcoming season.
As the Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, 17th rector of Trinity Wall Street, observes:
“Ten years ago, the final act of many 9/11 victims was one of love. Facing the unthinkable, their parting gesture was to reach out to their families, friends, and colleagues. Ten years later, let us ‘Remember to Love’ those who are gone, those who remain, and those to come. Let us further remember and honor those who perished by generating a post-anniversary community committed to reconciliation and peace.”
The choirs participating in the five choral concerts on September 9 are the Trinity Choir (NY), New York City Master Chorale (NY), Washington Chorus (DC), Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania), and Copley Singers (Boston). Besides representing the four regions most closely associated with the 9/11 attacks, all six ensembles are justly – in several cases, internationally – celebrated. Thanks to medici.tv, all five of these important commemorative events will be available to a vast audience that might otherwise never have been able to witness such first-class performances live or share in the “Remember to Love” experience.
Hervé Boissière, Founder and CEO of medici.tv, explains:
“It’s extremely moving for us to extend the reach of the participating choirs and to help commemorate the event on a worldwide scale. September 11 is a profoundly symbolic day for all of us, and the Trinity concerts remind us that music is the message of peace. We are proud to have these important concerts from New York City available at medici.tv.”
The final concert will be webcast live by NPR Music and then archived on www.npr.org/music.
Five choral concerts streaming live on medici.tv on September 9 (all times EST):
At 11am, the Grammy Award-winning Washington Chorus performs Rachmaninoff’s Vespers: a cappella settings of texts taken from the Russian Orthodox all-night vigil ceremony, and one of the composer’s personal favorites.
At 1pm, the Washington Chorus returns, performing Cantique de Jean Racine, a youthful work by Fauré, who is far better known for his own timeless Requiem, which opens the day’s main event; this earlier concert concludes with another French requiem: that of Maurice Duruflé, who derived nearly all its thematic material from the Gregorian “Mass for the Dead”.
Duruflé figures once again on the program for the Boston-based Copley Singers, who proffer a smorgasbord of eclectic fare, from Schubert to Andrew Lloyd Webber by way of spirituals and more, under the direction of Brian Jones, Emeritus Director of Music and Organist at Boston’s Trinity Church, at 3pm.
No less distinguished is the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, America’s oldest Bach Choir, which gave the U.S. premieres of two of J.S. Bach’s most important works: the Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor. On Friday at 5pm, under the baton of Artistic Director Greg Funfgeld, the choir presents the Baroque master’s beloved Cantata BWV 140, Wachet auf (“Sleepers, Wake!”), alongside motets by Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Duruflé.
The Trinity Choir, recently praised by the New York Times for its “superbly performed” account of Handel’s Israel in Egypt, is the premier ensemble of the music and arts program at Trinity Wall Street. The music-filled day reaches its apex when it unites with the other choirs for a final performance with NOVUS NY, Trinity Wall Street’s resident contemporary music orchestra, at 8:30pm. Two famous requiems – those by Brahms and Fauré – feature prominently alongside selected movements from Brahms’s monumental Ein deutsches Requiem, with soloists from the Metropolitan Opera’s fall line-up: American soprano Angela Meade and Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. Fauré’s complete Requiem presents violinist Gil Shaham, winner of a Grammy Award and the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, and Trinity’s own baritone Dashon Burton. Jolle Greenleaf, “a soprano with a light, bright tone and impeccable delivery” (New York Times), sings the famous soaring “Pie Jesu” movement; according to Fauré’s compatriot and fellow composer Saint-Saëns, his was “the only Pie Jesu” that mattered.
The night’s final guest star is countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who makes his Metropolitan Opera debut this season in its world premiere production of The Enchanted Island. In Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Costanzo sings the famous setting of Psalm 23, one of the Psalms of David, which opens “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want”. Also on the program are Lukas Foss’s setting of the same verse, and Randall Thompson’s Last Words of David. Further fostering the spirit of reconciliation and acceptance, the concert closes with the “Dona nobis pacem” (Grant us peace) from Bach’s transcendental Mass in B minor, conducted by the Bach Choir’s Greg Funfgeld.
“Remember to Love”: Observance of the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11
Friday, September 9, 2011
11am: Choral concert: Washington Chorus
Trinity Church
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Vespers
Washington Chorus / Julian Wachner
1pm: Choral Concert: Washington Chorus
Trinity Church
Gabriel Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine
Maurice Duruflé: Requiem
Washington Chorus / Julian Wachner
3pm: Choral Concert: Copley Singers
Trinity Church
Maurice Duruflé: Ubi caritas
Geraint Lewis: Souls of the Righteous
Spiritual: “Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray”
Andrew Lloyd Webber: “Pie Jesu” from Requiem
Leo Sowerby: Psalm 122, “I Was Glad”
Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei
Spiritual: “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder”
Franz Schubert: Litanei
Stephen Paulus: Pilgrims’ Hymn
John Taverner: Song for Athene
Copley Singers / Brian Jones
5pm: Choral Concert: Bach Choir of Bethlehem
Trinity Church
J.S. Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140,
Maurice Duruflé: Four motets on Gregorian Themes, Op. 10
Maurice Duruflé: Ubi caritas
Johannes Brahms: Geistliches Lied (“Lass dich nur nichts nicht”), Op. 30
J.S. Bach: Der Friede sei mit dir, BWV 158
Felix Mendelssohn: Verleih’ uns Frieden gnädiglich
Bach Choir of Bethlehem / Greg Funfgeld
8:30pm: Choral concert: Remember to Love – Gil Shaham, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Angela Meade, and Luca Pisaroni
Trinity Church
Maurice Duruflé: Ubi caritas
Johannes Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem (selected movements)
Gabriel Fauré: Requiem
Randall Thompson: Last Words of David
Spiritual: “Soon I Will Be Done”
Marjorie Merryman: Windhover Fantasy
Lukas Foss: Psalm 23
Anthony Furnivall: “Amazing Grace”
Leonard Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
J.S. Bach: “Dona nobis pacem” from the Mass in B minor
Trinity Choir / Julian Wachner
NYC Master Chorale / Thea Kano
Washington Chorus / Julian Wachner
Bach Choir of Bethlehem / Greg Funfgeld
Copley Singers / Brian Jones, Conductor
NOVUS NY
With Gil Shaham, violin; Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor; Angela Meade and Jolle Greenleaf, sopranos; Luca Pisaroni, bass-baritone; and Dashon Burton, baritone. (Angela Meade and Luca Pisaroni appear courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.)
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