News and Resources

Chorus pro Musica Music Director Betsy Burleigh's inaugural season features Durufle Requiem, Bloch Sacred Service, and Carmina Burana

Betsy Burleigh, Chorus pro Musica's fifth Music Director in its 61-year history, begins her tenure with a subscription season of four concerts, including a celebration of great music for chorus and organ, a rare performance of Ernest Bloch's Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) for chorus and orchestra as part of the first Boston Jewish Music Festival, and a presentation of Carl Orff's ever-popular Carmina Burana at NEC's Jordan Hall.

The season begins on Sunday, November 8 at 3 pm at Old South Church, Copley Square, Boston, with a concert that includes Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, Zoltán Kodály's Laudes organi, and Johannes Brahms's motet, “Lass dich nur nichts nicht dauren.” The organist is Ross Wood, Associate Organist & Choirmaster at the Church of the Advent in Boston and a recitalist whose concerts have been broadcast on NPR and the BBC. The concert celebrates Old South's Skinner Opus 308 organ, a remarkable instrument with some 7,625 pipes, 110 stops and 115 ranks, which in 1985 was moved to Old South from the Ordway Civic Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, before that building was demolished. The organ was silenced last year when MBTA construction work opened a large crack in the wall of the church, but repairs now permit the organ to play again.

Concert tickets for the November 8 performance at Old South Church are $20, $30 and $45, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. Reserved seats may be selected and tickets purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276). For wheelchairaccessible seats, call 617-267-7442.

Chorus pro Musica's annual Holiday Season Celebration is Friday, December 18 at 8 pm at Old South Church in Copley Square, Boston. The concert includes the traditional candlelight procession, brass chorale and carol singing with the audience. Regular-price tickets for the Holiday concert are $20, $30 and $45.

On Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 4 pm at John Hancock Hall, Boston, Chorus pro Musica joins with the New England Philharmonic and the Zamir Chorale of Boston to present Ernest Bloch's Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), and also performs the world premiere of a new work by composer Andrew Rindfleisch that was commissioned by the chorus. The performance is a part of the first Boston Jewish Music Festival, and commemorates the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. Regular-price tickets for the March 14 concert are $25, $40 and $50.

The season concludes on Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 3 pm at NEC's Jordan Hall with works celebrating Spring, Love and the Tavern, including Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Dominick Argento's Odi et amo (I Hate and I Love). The performance will feature Carl Orff's own arrangement of Carmina Burana for two pianos and percussion. Regular-price tickets for the June 6 concert are $27, $42 and $57; the price includes a $2 restoration fee for Jordan Hall.

Subscriptions are available for all four concerts or for any combination of three concerts, at 10% off single-ticket prices, and may be purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276).

Chorus pro Musica also appears this season on January 24, 2010 at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, Federico Cortese, Music Director, in W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni, as part of a continuing partnership with BYSO that is not part of the chorus's subscription series.

Betsy Burleigh, in her debut season as Music Director, has been Music Director since 2005 of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, a renowned 115-voice chorus founded in 1908 that is the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's chorus of choice. She recently moved to Boston from Cleveland, where she was Assistant Director of Choruses for The Cleveland Orchestra and a full professor at Cleveland State University. For five years she served as Chorus Master for Cleveland Opera.

Ms. Burleigh is an active conductor, and has led the Pittsburgh Symphony, Opera Cleveland, the Akron Symphony, and the Canton Symphony Orchestras. She conducted the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus on an Emmy award-winning benefit concert for the 9/11 Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, and received the Northern Ohio Live Achievement Award for music direction of Viktor Ullman's opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis with Cleveland Public Theater. In February 2009 she conducted the Mendelssohn Chamber Chorus on the Library of Congress concert series in Washington, D.C.

She is no stranger to Boston: She was Music Director of The Master Singers from 1985-1991 and Music Director for the Longy Chamber Singers and the Cambridge Madrigal Singers, among other positions. She holds a doctorate in choral conducting from Indiana University and a masters degree from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Chorus pro Musica presents Giacomo Puccini's Turandot with Othalie Graham and Kip Wilborn

On Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 3 pm, Chorus pro Musica, led by guest conductor Jeffrey Rink, celebrates Giacomo Puccini's 150th anniversary with a concert performance of his grand opera Turandot at NEC's Jordan Hall, starring soprano Othalie Graham as Turandot, tenor Kip Wilborn as Calaf, and soprano Eleni Calenos as Liu. The performance also features Boston audience favorites David Kravitz, Frank Kelly, and Charles Blandy as Ping, Pang, and Pong. as well as the Boston City Singers, Jane Money, Artistic Director. At 2 pm in the hall, opera expert Michael Sims will discuss the history and development of Puccini's opera. The lecture and performance are sponsored by Concert Opera Boston.

Considered Puccini's masterpiece, Turandot remains as popular today as at its premiere in 1926. Set in China in “legendary times,” it tells the story of Prince Calaf's courtship of the icy princess Turandot, whose suitors must successfully answer three riddles or face certain death. The prince succeeds and then poses his own riddle to Turandot: she must discover his name. The opera is full of fiery, exotic music and soaring melodies, including the sublime tenor aria “Nessun dorma.”

Othalie Graham has become one of the leading young interpreters of the role of Turandot since her auspicious debut in the role with Opera Delaware in 2004, in which she was hailed for her “imperious presence and powerful voice.” The Salt Lake Tribune subsequently called her “a young dramatic soprano who is destined for international stardom.” Kip Wilborn is a leading operatic tenor who has received acclaim for roles including Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and Don Jose in Carmen. His debut solo CD with the Moravian Philharmonic, Be My Love, received a Surround Music Awards nomination for the best new artist of 2005; it includes a recording of “Nessun Dorma.”

Turandot continues Chorus pro Musica's long tradition of concert opera performances under Jeffrey Rink, which began in 1992 with performances of Carmen at Symphony Hall and at Worcester's Mechanics Hall. That tradition includes a standing-room-only performance of Turandot at Jordan Hall on May 31, 1998. In 2008, Jordan Hall was sold out when chorus again presented Carmen, with mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood in the title role. In 2007, the chorus performed Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, and in 2006 they gave the premiere Boston performance of Verdi's Attila. Earlier successes with Othello, Macbeth, Nabucco, and La traviata led to Rink's being hailed as “Boston's pre-eminent Verdi conductor” by the Boston Phoenix.

Music Director of Chorus pro Musica from 1990-2008, Jeffrey Rink is the 2005 recipient of the New England Opera Club's Jacopo Peri Award for outstanding contributions in the art of opera. In 2007, he was named Music Director of the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra in Niceville, Florida, where he also holds the Mattie Kelly Distinguished Chair in Music at Okaloosa-Walton College.

Concert tickets are $37, $57 and $77 (which includes a $2 fee for the preservation and maintenance of Jordan Hall), with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. Reserved seats may be selected and tickets purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276). For group ticket sales or wheelchair-accessible seats, call 617-267-7442.

For complete information, see the concert information page.

Chorus pro Musica presents the Boston premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Köthener Messe, with J.S. Bach’s Cantata 161 and Handel’s Dixit Dominus

Chorus pro Musica, led by guest conductor Michael Driscoll, presents the Boston premiere of British composer Jonathan Dove’s Köthener Messe on Saturday, March 14 at 8 pm, in the Church of The Covenant, 67 Newbury St, Boston. Also on the program are J.S. Bach’s Cantata 161, “Komm, du süsse Todesstunde” and G.F. Handel’s virtuoso work Dixit Dominus. Featured soloists are Frank Kelley, tenor, Susan Consoli, soprano, and Deborah Rentz-Moore, mezzo-soprano.

Dove, who turns 50 in 2009, won a British Composer Award for his Köthener Messe, a short Mass inspired by Bach’s great secular compositions during his stay at the court in Köthen—among them the Brandenburg Concertos and the Well-Tempered Klavier. Full of allusions to and quotations from Bach and performed with a chamber orchestra of strings, harpsichord and recorders, the work is nevertheless thoroughly modern. Critics have noted similarities to Arvo Pärt, Gabriel Fauré and John Adams, calling the work “a tapestry that makes perfect musical sense.” Bach’s own Cantata 161 is a gem from Weimar, a calm and assured meditation on death and salvation marked by exceptional sound painting that concludes with a lushly harmonized chorale. Handel’s Dixit Dominus, written when he was just 22, is a thrilling tour de force that marked a breakthrough for the young composer, his “explosion into genius.”

Concert tickets are $25, $35 and $45, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. Reserved seats may be selected and tickets purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276). For wheelchair-accessible seats, call 617-267-7442.

For complete information, see the concert information page.

Chorus pro Musica performs Carols and Lullabies from the Old and New Worlds with Conrad Susa’s Christmas in the Southwest
and Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols

Chorus pro Musica, led by guest conductor Betsy Burleigh, presents its annual holiday concert on Friday, December 19 at 8 pm, in Old South Church in Copley Square, Boston. The celebration includes classics from both Old England and Latin America. Benjamin Britten’s beloved Ceremony of Carols will be performed together with its modern American “companion piece,” Conrad Susa’s Carols and Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest. The concert will also include the traditional candlelight procession, seasonal favorites and carol singing with the audience, accompanied by guitar, harp and organ.

Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, written in 1942, is based on English carols and poems, mostly dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, set for chorus with harp accompaniment. With effective use of unison, canon and homophonic writing, Britten achieves an impressive range of color and texture in a work that captures the essence of an English Christmas. The work will be performed by both men and women of the chorus.

Conrad Susa’s Lullabies and Carols, composed in 1992, is a Nativity celebration of the Americas, adding guitar and marimba to Britten’s harp and including a medley of traditional Spanish carols from Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Parts are sung in Spanish, Catalán, and English. Conceived as a companion piece to the Ceremony of Carols, the composer said it was “the overriding image of a Southwestern piñata party for the new baby” that was the inspiration for its composition.

Concert tickets are $25, $35 and $45, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. Reserved seats may be selected and tickets purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276). For wheelchair-accessible seats, call 617-267-7442.

For complete information, see the concert information page.

Chorus pro Musica Opens 60th Anniversary Season with Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil

Chorus pro Musica opens its exciting 60th anniversary season with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil (Vespers) on Friday, November 7, 2008 at 8 pm at Old South Church, Copley Square, Boston, MA. Lisa Graham conducts this a cappella masterwork, which has been praised as Rachmaninoff’s finest achievement and indeed one of the high points of Orthodox music. Rachmaninoff himself requested that its fifth movement be sung at his funeral. First performed in 1915, the work was not heard in its entirety in Boston until 1993. Chorus pro Musica first performed it only seven months after its Boston premiere and last performed it in November 2000. Soloists are contralto Marion Dry and tenor Charles Blandy. The work will also be performed on Sunday, November 9 at 3 pm at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, West Roxbury, MA.

Concert tickets for the November 7 performance at Old South Church are $20, $30 and $40, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. Reserved seats may be selected and tickets purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276). For wheelchair-accessible seats, or to purchase tickets for the November 9 performance, call 617-267-7442.

For complete information, see the concert information page.

Season also features Susa, Dove and Puccini

Chorus pro Musica is celebrating its 60th anniversary season with a diverse repertoire of concerts led by four exceptional guest conductors, including former Music Director Jeffrey Rink, who returns in the spring to lead a concert performance of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot. The other guest conductors, each of whom conducts one subscription concert, are Betsy Burleigh, Music Director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, Assistant Director of Choruses for the Cleveland Orchestra, and Coordinator of Choral and Vocal Music at Cleveland State University; Michael Driscoll, Director of Choirs at Brookline High School, Music Director of Saengerfest Men’s Chorus, and former Associate Conductor of the Masterworks Chorale; and Lisa Graham, the Evelyn Barry Director of the Choral Program at Wellesley College, Music Director of the Brookline Chorus, and conductor of the Handel & Haydn Society’s Young Women’s Chorus.

The holiday season celebration, conducted by Betsy Burleigh, is at Old South Church in Copley Square, Boston on Friday, December 19 at 8 pm, and features Conrad Susa’s Carols and Lullabies, Music of the Southwest. Conceived as a companion piece to Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, the work is a medley of traditional Spanish carols from Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico, arranged for chorus, harp, guitar and marimba. There are striking similarities with Renaissance music, but this is a Nativity celebration of the Americas: The composer said it was “the overriding image of a Southwestern piñata party for the new baby” that led him to add guitar and marimba to Britten’s harp. The concert will also include the traditional candlelight procession, brass chorale and carol singing with the audience.

On Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 8 pm at the Church of The Covenant in Boston, Michael Driscoll leads the chorus and a chamber orchestra in a concert of Baroque music that includes the Boston premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Köthener Messe, written in 2002, together with J.S. Bach’s Cantata 161, “Komm, du süsse Todesstunde,” and G.F. Handel’s Dixit Dominus. Dove, who turns 50 in 2009, won a British Composer Award for his Mass, which is inspired by Bach’s great secular compositions during his stay at the court in Köthen—among them the Brandenburg Concertos and the Well-Tempered Klavier. It has been called “a tapestry that makes perfect musical sense,” grounded in Bach but in which “the spacious string chords of Arvo Pärt and the running sequences of the American minimalists hover on the sidelines.” Bach’s Cantata 161, one of the most beautiful of his Weimar cantatas, concludes with a lushly harmonized chorale carrying a message of hope and peace. Handel’s Dixit Dominus, written when he was just 22, is a thrilling tour de force that marks a breakthrough for the young composer, his “explosion into genius.”

The season concludes with Giacomo Puccini’s grand opera Turandot, conducted in concert by Jeffrey Rink on Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 3 pm at NEC’s Jordan Hall. The performance will mark the 14th annual concert opera under Maestro Rink’s direction since 1992, a tradition that includes an exciting performance of Turandot in 1998 to a capacity crowd in Jordan Hall. Turandot, famous for the beloved aria “Nessun Dorma,” tells the story of an icy Chinese princess whose suitors must answer three riddles to win her hand-or die trying. Soprano Othalie Graham is Turandot and tenor Kip Wilborn is Calaf. The performance is in Italian with projected translations, and is sponsored by Concert Opera Boston. Jeffrey Rink, recipient in 2005 of the Jacopo Peri Award of the New England Opera Club for outstanding contributions in the art of opera, directed the Chorus pro Musica for 18 years before leaving in 2008 to serve as Music Director of the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra and the Mattie Kelly Distinguished Endowed Teaching Chair in Music and Conducting at Northwest Florida State College.

Subscriptions are available for all four concerts or for any combination of three concerts, at 10% off single-ticket prices, and may be purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276).

Chorus pro Musica also appears this season on January 18, 2009 with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, Federico Cortese, Music Director, in W.A. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro; and April 4–5, 2009 with the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, Jung-Ho Pak, Music Director, in Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Barnstable High School Performing Arts Center. The Chorus appeared in September with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Charles Ansbacher, Music Director, in Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem at the Hatch Shell in Boston.

For complete information, see the concert information page.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF CHORUS PRO MUSICA’S 2008–09 GUEST CONDUCTORS

Betsy Burleigh is Music Director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh. She is also Assistant Director of Choruses for the Cleveland Orchestra and Coordinator of Choral and Vocal Music at Cleveland State University. Her musical career began in Boston, where she was Music Director of The Master Singers. Dr. Burleigh was chorus master for the Cleveland Opera from 2002–2006 and director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus from 1998–2006. Academic posts have included serving as Director of Choral Activities at Tufts University and Clark University. She holds a doctorate in choral conducting from Indiana University and a masters from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Michael Driscoll is Director of Choirs at Brookline High School, where he directs three choirs, advises three student-run a cappella ensembles, teaches music theory and is vocal coach for the annual musical production. He is also Music Director of Saengerfest Men’s Chorus, a Boston-based community chorus of 65 singers. Michael was Associate Conductor of The Masterworks Chorale. He has also directed the choirs at Emerson College and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Mr. Driscoll received his masters degree in Choral Conducting from the New England Conservatory.

Lisa Graham is the Evelyn Barry Director of the Choral Program at Wellesley College. She is also Music Director of the Brookline Chorus and conducts the Handel & Haydn Society’s Young Women’s Chorus. Before joining Wellesley College, she was on the faculty at California State University at Northridge, where she directed choirs at Sonoma State University and performed in and directed productions at Cinnabar Opera Theater in Northern California. She earned her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees at the University of Southern California.

Jeffrey Rink led Chorus pro Musica for 18 seasons, garnering critical acclaim in the full gamut of the choral repertoire, with particular success in concert opera. “The afternoon’s mastermind was, of course, Music Director Jeffrey Rink, an opera conductor to be reckoned with,” (T. J. Medrek, Boston Herald). Mr. Rink was honored in 2005 by the New England Opera Club with the Jacopo Peri Award for his significant contributions to the art of opera. Maestro Rink is now the conductor of the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra and the Mattie Kelly Distinguished Endowed Teaching Chair in Music and Conducting at Northwest Florida State College.

Chorus pro Musica presents Georges Bizet’s Carmen featuring Victoria Livengood

On Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 3 pm, Chorus pro Musica, led by Artistic Director Jeffrey Rink, concludes its 2007–2008 season at NEC’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, with a concert opera performance of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, featuring Metropolitan Opera star Victoria Livengood in her signature role as Carmen. The performance also highlights Metropolitan Opera tenor Adam Klein as Don José, Boston baritone Robert Honeysucker as Escamilllo, and soprano Nouné Karapetian as Micaela, as well as the New England Conservatory Children’s Chorus, Jean Meltaus, Director. At 2 pm in the hall, Concert Opera Boston artistic advisor Michael Sims will discuss the origins and unexpected rise to stardom of Bizet’s opera. The lecture and performance are sponsored by Concert Opera Boston.

For complete information, see the concert press release and the concert information page.

Farewell To Maestro Jeffrey Rink

Jeffrey Rink, our esteemed Music Director for the past 17 years, is not returning to direct CpM next season. He is continuing as Music Director of the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra in Niceville, Florida, where he also holds the Mattie Kelly Distinguished Chair in Music at Okaloosa-Walton College. We congratulate him, and wish him and his family well for the future. More details and a selection of Maestro Rink's accomplishments with CpM can be found in the press release.

Chorus pro Musica Seeks Music Director

The chorus has formed a Search Committee and begun the difficult search for our fifth Music Director. Please see the position description.

Chorus pro Musica celebrates New England composers and pays special tribute to Daniel Pinkham with guest conductor David Hodgkins

Chorus pro Musica, led by Guest Conductor David Hodgkins, will present a special concert celebrating New England composers on March 7, at 8 pm, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, 138 Tremont Street, Boston (opposite the Park St MBTA station). The performance includes a special tribute to Daniel Pinkham, who at his death in December 2006 left a substantial legacy of great works, many commissioned or premiered by Chorus pro Musica.

The concert includes works both a cappella and accompanied, by William Billings (Modern Music, David's Lamentation, and Be Glad then America), Charles Ives (Psalm 67 and Psalm 90), Daniel Pinkham (A Song for St. Cecilia¹s Day, Fanfares, and Christmas Cantata), and Randall Thompson's Alleluia. Featured soloists are Carole Haber, soprano, Jason McStoots, tenor, and David Kravitz, bass

Guest conductor David Hodgkins is making his debut appearance with Chorus pro Musica. A native of Reading, Massachusetts, David Hodgkins is the Artistic Director of Coro Allegro, a 60-voice ensemble that he has led since 1992. In addition, Mr. Hodgkins was named Artistic Director of the New England Classical Singers in 1999, and is on the faculty of the Commonwealth School, a private high school in Boston¹s Back Bay. David Hodgkins studied piano, voice and harpsichord at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, and earned a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from Temple University in Philadelphia under Alan Harler. His mentors in conducting have also included Wayne Abercrombie, Fiore Contino, Paul Vermel, and Gunther Schuller.

For complete information, see the concert press release and the concert information page.

Chorus pro Musica’s Annual Holiday Concert features Guest Conductor Lisa Graham

On December 21, Chorus pro Musica, led by Guest Conductor Lisa Graham, will present its annual holiday celebration concert at Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street, Copley Square, Boston. The performance includes Daniel Pinkham’s Christmas Cantata, Morten Lauridsen’s “O magnum mysterium,” and Gustav Holst’s arrangement of “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” among other seasonal favorites. As in the past, there will be a candlelight processional and opportunities for the audience to join in singing Christmas carols.

Lisa Graham is making her debut appearance with Chorus pro Musica. Now in her sixth year as Evelyn Barry Director of Choral Music at Wellesley College, Dr. Graham conducts the Wellesley College Choir, Glee Club, and Chamber Singers as well as teaching courses in the music department. She is also Music Director of the Brookline Chorus and conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society’s Young Women’s Chorus. She earned her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts Degrees at the University of Southern California, and has served on the faculty at California State University Northridge, directed choirs at Sonoma State University, and performed in and directed productions at Cinnabar Opera Theater in Northern California.

Also performing will be the New England Conservatory Children’s Chorus, Jean Meltaus, Director.

For complete information, see the concert press release and the concert information page.

Chorus pro Musica presents Roger Ames’s Requiem for Our Time, with poetry by Anne Sexton, and Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem

Chorus pro Musica, led by Artistic Director Jeffrey Rink, performs two profound yet contrasting Requiem settings by Roger Ames and Gabriel Fauré on Friday, November 9, 2007 at 8 pm at Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street, Copley Square, Boston. The performance features soloists David Murray, baritone, and Ilana Davidson, soprano.

Modeled after Benjamin Britten’s magnificent War Requiem, the Requiem for Our Time by American composer Roger Ames merges the haunting, contemporary poetry of the late Boston-based poet Anne Sexton with traditional Latin texts to create a modern context for the ancient and moving remembrance of the dead. The piece premiered in 1985 (in a performance conducted by Jeffrey Rink) as “Requiem for Unbelievers.” This will be its first New England performance. Roger Ames (b. 1944) is a noted composer of operas and vocal works, including Amistad and In Memoriam: Warsaw 1943.

For complete information, see the concert press release and the concert information page.

Chorus pro Musica presents Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci in concert

On Sunday, June 3 at 3 pm, Chorus pro Musica concludes its 2006–2007 season at NEC’s Jordan Hall with a concert performance of the two most celebrated verismo operas: Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci. Preceding the concert, noted musicologist Steven Ledbetter will speak about the importance of these operas and the verismo movement. The lecture and performance are sponsored by Concert Opera Boston.

Tenor Michael Hayes, who was Samson in Chorus pro Musica’s electrifying 2005 performance of Samson et Dalila, will sing the roles of Turridu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Canio in I Pagliacci. Also featured are Layna Chianakas (Santuzza), Maryann Mootos (Nedda), Jason Stearns (Tonio), David Murray (Alfio), Joshua Benaim (Silvio), and Jacque Wilson (Lola), as well as the New England Conservatory Children’s Chorus, Jean Meltaus, Director.

For complete information, see the concert press release and the concert information page.

Chorus pro Musica presents J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion with period instrument orchestra

See the press release; hear the radio spot (produced by WHRB 95.3 FM).

Two weeks before Good Friday, on March 23, 2007, Chorus pro Musica will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s dramatic and moving setting of Christ’s Passion according to St. John. The first of Bach’s two surviving Passion settings, the St. John Passion is not heard as often as his later St. Matthew Passion setting. The CpM performance will be only the third Boston performance by a major chorus in the past decade.

The St. John Passion was first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday, 1724. It was one of Bach’s first compositions there, and came after a difficult time that included the sudden death of his first wife and his departure from a position as a court musician. The citizens of Leipzig were wary of “operatic” music in church, but Bach nonetheless gave them a vivid drama, alternating arias, recitatives and choruses on biblical texts with chorales and hymns that interpret the story. The work includes ferocious crowd scenes and some of the most difficult — and expressive — arias Bach ever wrote.

CpM women perform with Longwood Symphony Orchestra

On Saturday, March 10, 2007, women of Chorus pro Musica were featured with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes.

Chorus pro Musica featured in 2006–2007 Catalogue for Philanthropy

Chorus pro Musica was one of 45 cultural, environmental, and human service organizations selected in 2006–2007 from throughout Massachusetts to be profiled as “examples of excellence” in the Catalogue for Philanthropy.

Chorus pro Musica on Fox 25 morning news

On Tuesday, December 19, members of the chorus appeared on the Fox 25 Morning News. Click here to see the performance! (requires the Macromedia Flash 8 player).

A free Holiday concert!

On Monday, November 27 at 7 PM, at The Perkins School, 175 N. Beacon St, Watertown, Chorus pro Musica presents its annual Perkins School holiday concert, featuring choral works and carols from the December 22 concert, "An English Christmas". The concert is free and open to the public, and is in the Howe building auditorium. The program will be short (approximately 30 minutes) but lively. For further information, call 617-267-7442.

Chorus pro Musica celebrates the holidays with An English Christmas, featuring Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols”

Read all about it! — in the concert announcement.

Chorus pro Musica opens season with Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Chorus and Henryk Górecki’s Miserere

Concert details and more information about the program are on the concert’s press resources page.

Announcing the Chorus pro Musica 2006–2007 season

The season begins with the Mass for double chorus by Frank Martin, Henryk Górecki’s Miserere, and a beautiful setting by Herbert Murrill of the Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis on November 3, 2006; it also includes An English Christmas, featuring Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, on December 22, 2006; J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, on March 23, 2007; and Cavalleria Rusticana (by Pietro Mascagni) and Pagliacci (by Ruggiero Leoncavallo) on June 3, 2007.

For more details see the announcement

Chorus pro Musica’s Attila receives top reviews

Boston Globe music critic Richard Dyer’s review was captioned “Rink, Chorus conquer with Attila”. Dyer wrote: “Verdi’s Attila is a brawling, lusty opera that got just that kind of performance from music director Jeffrey Rink, Chorus pro Musica, and an uninhibited cast on Sunday. … The Chorus pro Musica offered ringing tone and disciplined enthusiasm. The orchestra, full of veterans of Boston’s opera wars, played a fiery performance for Rink, who commands all the skills of operatic conducting. Like a conqueror he knows where he wants to go and how to inspire his troops to get there.”

Lloyd Schwartz of the Boston Phoenix wrote, “The Chorus itself shone as both ravenous Germanic cannibals and fervent hermits (I guess Verdi never saw the illogic of a group of hermits), and that was especially important because Verdi structures this opera around contrasting choruses. Rink’s superb orchestra played not only with unflagging energy but also with finesse. He shaped those musical arches and made every change in tempo tell. There wasn’t a dull second.”

Reviews of many CpM concerts are archived on the reviews page.

Chorus pro Musica performs the National Anthem at Fenway Park

Chorus pro Musica was asked to sing the national anthem for the Boston Red Sox before a June 11, 2006 game against the Texas Rangers.

This was the chorus’s second appearance at Fenway before a Red Sox game. The first, in September 2003, was part of the "Green Monster Gala" fundraiser, when a block of tickets were purchased in the then-new Green Monster seats.

Performers included Helen Sagan, Cathy Aude, Mary Wolf, Janet Saad, Jessen Langley, Shops Howard, Beth Goldman Galer, Vera Ryen Gregg, Sharon Magnuson, Portia Walker, Beth Wharff, Alison Palmer, Christine Kodis, Susan Kendall Freiner, Rosalind Cresswell, Sarah Bastille, Margaret Braccio, Nina Saltus, Fritz Casselman, Jonathan Rosoff, Ron Severson, Philip Russom, Reg Didham, Steve Bloom, Bruce McCuen, Chip Hitchock, Jim Cadorette, Carl Erdly, Colin Godfrey, Richard Oedel, Adrian Packel, David Godkin, and Paul Kowal.

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