Trinity Wall Street: Messiah at ATH (Dec 18) and Twelfth Night Festival (Dec 26–Jan 6)
Music at Trinity Wall Street represents a high-water mark of the holiday season in New York City. There is no more venerable New World tradition of Handel’s Messiah than that of the historic downtown parish, where performances date back to 1770. This season – having scored a Grammy nomination for their recording of the Baroque master’s Israel in Egypt – the Trinity Choir, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and music director Julian Wachner give their annual Messiah performances at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall (Dec 18) and at Trinity Church (Dec 7 & 8). Trinity’s seasonal offerings continue with the return of the Twelfth Night Festival (Dec 26–Jan 6). Highlights include Wachner leading Trinity’s ensembles in seasonal Bach cantatas, and the Trinity Youth Chorus in Christmas-themed works by Benjamin Britten, as well as special guest performances: Gotham Early Music Scene will present the medieval Play of Daniel, the Clarion Society will sing Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, and Gotham Chamber Opera will join forces with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra in a fully-staged production of Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée. As the New York Times observes, Wachner “has taken the church’s program to new heights,” rendering music at Trinity “one of the city’s treasures.”
Messiah at Lincoln Center and Trinity Church
Handel’s Messiah is a perennial holiday favorite that reliably draws sellout crowds. This owes much to Trinity Wall Street, which was instrumental in pioneering the oratorio in the New World: Trinity Church presented the second American performance in 1770, besides playing a part in the American premiere of Messiah just eight months earlier and only blocks away at Burns’s Coffee House on Broadway, where the concert served as a fundraiser for Trinity’s organist. Given this long and rich history, it is fitting that it was with Messiah that Trinity Wall Street made its Lincoln Center debut two years ago, launching a new annual holiday tradition that has been warmly welcomed by the New York Times. “To experience the full, formidable range of Messiah…let Trinity be your guide,” counseled one review, while a second noted that where others present Handel’s oratorio as “a comfortable holiday tradition, Trinity put on something closer to a sacred rite.” This season’s performance at Alice Tully Hall will take place on December 18, following two at Trinity Church on December 7 and 8.
Twelfth Night Festival
Trinity’s Twelfth Night Festival returns, celebrating the twelve days of the nativity with a full program of events from December 26 through January 6. Julian Wachner leads the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra in performances of seasonal Bach cantatas that include Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 190, and Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm, BWV 171, composed to celebrate the New Year (Jan 2); the transcendent funeral cantata, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106, known as the Actus Tragicus (Jan 3); and Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65, and Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123, both written to commemorate the Feast of the Epiphany (Jan 6). The New York Times has praised the “dramatic vigor” of Trinity’s Bach performances, finding them distinguished by a “buoyant, elegantly shaped orchestral sound” and the “lithe, immaculate, and colorful singing of the chorus.”
The festival also showcases holiday-themed choral works by English composer Benjamin Britten, whose centennial Trinity has been honoring since September with “Celebrating Britten,” “a most exciting and worthy project” (New York Times). These works include the Christmas cantata Saint Nicolas (Jan 5) and the ever-popular Ceremony of Carols, a setting of Middle-English carols for treble voices and harp (Dec 26), both of which will be sung by the Trinity Youth Chorus.
Following the success of its participation in last season’s Twelfth Night Festival, the Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS) returns to present The Play of Daniel, a 12th-century liturgical music drama depicting the story of Daniel in the lions’ den. Sung entirely in Latin, GEMS’s fully-costumed production features dance and performances by many of New York’s finest period instrumentalists and singers (Dec 27-29). Describing the production as “spine-tingling,” the New York Times concluded: “The very old felt…very much of our time.”
Also making a guest appearance are the Clarion Society and its artistic director Steven Fox, “a conductor to follow” (Seen and Heard International). Together they undertake two accounts of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, the composer’s choral masterpiece that draws on ancient Kievan and Byzantine chants in a setting of texts from the Russian Orthodox all-night vigil ceremony (Dec 31 & Jan 1).
In a groundbreaking new collaboration, Gotham Chamber Opera – the Baroque specialists who have “won a prestigious place in the hearts of adventurous opera-goers” (Musical Criticism) – will team up with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra for three fully-staged presentations of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s chamber opera La descente d’Orphée, which explores the transcendental power of music through the story of Orpheus and Eurydice (Jan 1, 3 & 5).
Other festival highlights include Josquin des Prez’s Missa de Beata Virgine and other sacred motets of the Netherlandish Renaissance (Dec 28) and “Wondrous Birth, O Wondrous Child,” an intimate seasonal meditation spanning nine centuries of music from male vocal quartet New York Polyphony (Jan 2).
Full program details of the Twelfth Night Festival and Trinity Wall Street’s other seasonal offerings are provided below.
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Trinity Wall Street
One of the oldest, largest and most vibrant of all Episcopal parishes, Trinity Wall Street is located in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, where it has created a dynamic home for great music. Serving as director of Trinity’s Music and the Arts Program – as well as principal conductor of the Trinity Choir, the period-instrument Trinity Baroque Orchestra and the contemporary-music ensemble-in-residence Novus NY – Julian Wachner also oversees all liturgical, professional and community music and arts programming at Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel. The music at Trinity ranges from large-scale oratorios to chamber music, from intimate a cappella singing to jazz improvisation. All concerts at Trinity Wall Street are professionally filmed and webcast live at www.trinitywallstreet.org.
Trinity Wall Street: holiday season, 2013-14
Sun, Dec 1, 8 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Compline by Candlelight
Britten: Sacred and Profane: VIII. A Death
Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Mon, Dec 2, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Bach at One
Bach: Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott (BWV 129)
Bach: Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir (BWV 130)
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Thurs, Dec 5, 1 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Concerts at One
Britten: Quartet No. 3 for strings, Op. 94
Berg: Lyric Suite
Decoda (Owen Dalby, violin; Anna Elashvili, violin; Meena Bhasin, viola; Claire Bryant, cello)
Sat, Dec 7, 7 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Handel: Messiah
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Sun, Dec 8, 3 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Handel: Messiah
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Sun, Dec 8, 8 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Compline by Candlelight
Britten: Sacred and Profane: VI. Carol
Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Mon, Dec 9, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Bach at One
Bach: Suite for cello, No. 1 (BWV 1007)
Bach: Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor (BWV 1004)
Britten: Suite for solo cello, No. 2
Elinor Frey, cello and baroque cello
Wed, Dec 11, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Pipes at One
Justin Bischof, concert organist, conductor, and composer
Thurs, Dec 12, 1 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Concerts at One
Britten: Who are these children?
Folksongs
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Christopher Herbert, baritone; Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor; Timothy Long, piano
Sun, Dec 15, 8 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Compline by Candlelight
Britten: A.M.D.G: VII. Heaven-Haven
Choir of Trinity Wall Street
Mon, Dec 16, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Bach at One
Avi Stein, Principal Keyboardist; Trinity Baroque Orchestra
Wed, Dec 18, 7:30 pm (Alice Tully Hall)
Handel: Messiah
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Thurs, Dec 19, 1 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Concerts at One
Fitzpatrick: Prelude on themes by Benjamin Britten
West Point Band
Sun, Dec 22, 8 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Compline by Candlelight
Britten: There is No Rose of Such Virtue
Choir of Trinity Wall Street
Thurs, Dec 26, 1 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival
Benjamin Britten: A Ceremony of Carols; A Birthday Hansel; Suite for Harp;
Trinity Youth Chorus / Melissa Attebury
Fri, Dec 27, 8 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival
The Play of Daniel
Gotham Early Music Scene
Sat, Dec 28, 3 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival
The Play of Daniel
Gotham Early Music Scene
Sat, Dec 28, 6 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival
Des Prez: Missa de Beata Virgine
Motets of Binchois, Brumel, Busnois, Dufay, Mouton, Obrecht, and Ockeghem
Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Sun, Dec 29, 3 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival
The Play of Daniel
Gotham Early Music Scene
Mon, Dec 30, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Bach at One
Bach: Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (BWV 125)
Bach: Meine Seel erhebt den Herren (BWV 10)
Britten: Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street; Christopher Herbert, baritone; Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor; Geoffrey Williams, countertenor / Julian Wachner, piano and conductor
Tues, Dec 31, 5 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival
Rachmaninoff: Vespers
Clarion Music Society / Steven Fox
Wed, Jan 1, 5 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival
Rachmaninoff: Vespers
Clarion Music Society / Steven Fox
Wed, Jan 1, 7 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Charpentier: La descente d’Orphée
Gotham Chamber Opera / Andrew Eggert, stage director
Trinity Baroque Orchestra / Neal Goren
Thurs, Jan 2, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Bach at One
Bach: Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (BWV 190)
Bach: Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm (BWV 171)
Bach: Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele (BWV 143)
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Thurs, Jan 2, 7 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
“Wondrous birth, O wondrous child”
New York Polyphony (Geoffrey Williams, countertenor; Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor; Christopher Herbert, baritone; Craig Phillips, bass)
Fri, Jan 3, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Bach at One
Bach: Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn (BWV 152)
Bach: Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (BWV 106)
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Fri, Jan 3, 7 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Charpentier: La descente d’Orphée
Gotham Chamber Opera / Andrew Eggert, stage director
Trinity Baroque Orchestra / Neal Goren
Sat, Jan 4, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Bach: Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid (BWV 58)
Bach: Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind (BWV 153)
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Sat, Jan 4, 7 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
“Violini A Due”: An Italian Journey
Quicksilver (Robert Mealy and Julie Andrijeski, violins); Avi Stein, harpsichord and organ; Charles Weaver, baroque guitar and theorbo
Sun, Jan 5, 2 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival – Gala Concert
Britten: Saint Nicolas
Britten: A Boy was Born
Novus NY; Trinity Youth Chorus; Trinity Youth Orchestra / Julian Wachner
Sun, Jan 5, 5 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Charpentier: La descente d’Orphée
Gotham Chamber Opera / Andrew Eggert, stage director
Trinity Baroque Orchestra / Neal Goren
Mon, Jan 6, 1 pm (St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway at Fulton)
Twelfth Night Festival
Bach at One
Bach: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen (BWV 65)
Bach: Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen (BWV 123)
Trinity Baroque Orchestra; Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
Mon, Jan 6, 6 pm (Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall)
Twelfth Night Festival Finale
Bach: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen (BWV 65)
Choir of Trinity Wall Street / Julian Wachner
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© 21C Media Group, October 2013