Trinity Wall Street remembers 9/11 with 9 choral concerts today
Today, Trinity Wall Street and St. Paul’s Chapel – just a stone’s throw from Ground Zero –observe the tenth anniversary of the attacks with a full day of concerts informed by the theme “Remember to Love”. The nine choral concerts – all free, and open to the public, five of which are being streamed live by medici.tv – feature celebrated choirs from New York City, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, and Boston, regions linked by the tragic events of 9/11. After hourly performances by each of the choirs throughout the day, five of the choirs come together for a final concert at 8:30pm, with guest star appearances by violinist Gil Shaham, soprano Angela Meade, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. The final concert’s webcast, produced by Trinity Wall Street, will be carried live by NPR Music and then archived, with a slideshow of photos, on www.npr.org/music; along with four of the preceding choral concerts, it will also be streamed live on medici.tv. Details of all nine concerts follow below.
For further information about the five concerts being webcast live by medici.tv, please visit: https://www.21cmediagroup.com/mediacenter/newsitem.php?i=747
Below are details of the other four concerts taking place today at Trinity Wall Street and St. Paul’s Chapel.
12 noon:
The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, America’s oldest Bach choir, gave the U.S. premieres of two of J.S. Bach’s most important works: the Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor. Now, under the baton of Artistic Director Greg Funfgeld, the choir presents two programs before taking part in the evening’s finale. The first, at noon, spotlights Stephen Paulus’s Dream of Time, a 2009 Bach Choir commission dedicated to Funfgeld in honor of his 25th year as the ensemble’s Artistic Director. (For its second program, at 5pm and webcast by medici.tv, the choir returns to its roots with Bach’s beloved Cantata BWV 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Sleepers, Wake!”), alongside motets by Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Duruflé.)
2:00pm:
Fittingly, the requiem is the theme at 2pm, when the New York City Master Chorale, conducted by its founder Thea Kano, presents American composer Paul Leavitt’s unique vision of the genre. Following the sudden death of his partner Gwénole Le Dréan during the summer of 1999, Leavitt was inspired to write a monumental Requiem after he awoke one morning to hear the peaceful notes of the “Pie Jesu” melody he had penned earlier playing in his head. Paying homage to one of the most famous choral requiems written by a French composer, Leavitt modeled his work on the text of Maurice Duruflé’s 1947 Requiem. Leavitt and Duruflé’s requiems also share a similar harmonic palette, degree of symmetry, emotional range, and impressionistic structure.
4:00pm
At 4pm, the Young People’s Chorus of NYC tenders a wide-ranging mix of offerings, including compositions and arrangements by its founder and Artistic Director Francisco J. Núñez; popular songs from John Legend and Rufus Wainwright; and new music from contemporary composers Nico Muhly and John Corigliano. The chorus has won almost a dozen gold medals in international competitions as well as Chorus America’s Education Outreach Award and two Chorus America/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming.
6:00pm
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. At 6pm, the choir, led by its principal conductor, Julian Wachner, will offer works by Martin Amlin, Herbert Howells, Julian Wachner, and György Ligeti. His Lux aeterna – best-known for its use in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey – is actually a setting of lines from the Catholic Requiem mass for the dead.
All concerts at Trinity Wall Street are professionally filmed and broadcast live at www.trinitywallstreet.org.
Trinity Wall Street
“Remember to Love”: Observance of the Tenth Anniversary of September 11
Friday, September 9
11am: Choral concert: Washington Chorus, Trinity Church
N.B. This concert will be webcast live by medici.tv.
Serge Rachmaninoff: Vespers
Washington Chorus / Julian Wachner
12pm: Choral concert: Bach Choir of Bethlehem, St. Paul’s Chapel
Stephen Paulus: A Dream of Time
Bach Choir of Bethlehem / Greg Funfgeld
1pm: Choral concert: Washington Chorus, Trinity Church
N.B. This concert will be webcast live by medici.tv.
Gabriel Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine
Maurice Duruflé: Requiem
Washington Chorus / Julian Wachner
2pm: Choral concert: NYC Master Chorale, St. Paul’s Chapel
Mozart: Requiem
NYC Master Chorale / Thea Kano, Artistic Director
3pm: Choral concert: Copley Singers, Trinity Church
N.B. This concert will be webcast live by medici.tv.
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
4pm: Choral concert: Young People’s Chorus of NYC, St. Paul’s Chapel
Chant: Ubi Caritas
Tomas Luis Victoria: Vere Langoures
Francisco Núnez: Criomé Mi Madre
Núnez: Selections from Misa Pequena Para Ninos
Rufus Wainwright: “Bloom: One Self I Sing,” “Unseen Buds,” and “Lux Eterna”
John Corigliano: One Sweet Morning
Nico Muhly: I Drink the Air Before Me
American Folk Song: “Beautiful Dreamer”
Derek Bermel Born: Small Red Tree
Gabriella Lena Frank: Picaflor Esmeralda
John Legend: “If You’re Out There”
Jim Papoulis, arr. F. Núnez: Give Us Hope
Young People’s Chorus of NYC / Francisco J. Núnez, Founder and Artistic Director
5pm: Choral Concert: Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Trinity Church
N.B. This concert will be webcast live by medici.tv.
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
6pm: Choral concert: Trinity Choir, St. Paul’s Chapel
Benjamin Britten: Cantata Misericordium
György Ligeti: Lux aeternum
Herbert Howells: Take Him Earth for Cherishing
Robert Kyr: Selections from Songs of the Souls
Trinity Choir / Julian Wachner
8:30pm: Choral concert: Dona nobis Pacem, Trinity Church
N.B. This concert will be webcast live by medici.tv and www.npr.org/music, where it will also be archived.
Gabriel Fauré: Requiem
Randall Thompson: Last Words of King David
Ned Rorem: Sing My Soul
Spiritual: “Soon I Will Be Done”
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
Young People’s Chorus of New York City / Francisco J. Nunez
Washington Chorus / Julian Wachner
Bach Choir of Bethlehem / Greg Funfgeld
Copley Singers / Brian Jones, Conductor
With Gil Shaham, violin; Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor; Susanna Phillips, mezzo-soprano; & Luca Pisaroni, baritone
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© 21C Media Group, September 2011