The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys with Concert Royal and guest conductor Daniel Beckwith present Handel’s Dixit Dominus and two cantatas by J.S. Bach: Cantata 106, God’s time is the very best time, and Cantata 11, Laud to God in all his kingdoms on Friday, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, One West 53rd Street. New York, NY. Soloists for this program are Yulia Van Doren & Shannon Mercer, soprano; Ian Howell, countertenor; Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor; Jesse Blumberg, bass.
Dixit Dominus was composed by Handel in Rome in 1707. A setting of Psalm 110 (The Lord Said), it captures the flamboyant tension and precocious genius that must have struck the 22-year-old’s Roman patrons like a thunderbolt.’ (Gramophone Magazine) Cantata 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God’s time is the very best time), is one of J. S. Bach’s (1685-1750) earliest cantatas, otherwise known as the funeral cantata Actus Tragicus. Alfred Dürr called the piece ‘a work of genius such as even great masters seldom achieve…The Actus Tragicus belongs to the great musical literature of the world’. Cantata 11, Lobet Gott in seinen Riechen (Laud to God in all his kingdoms), known as the Ascension Oratorio follows the story of the Ascension as told in the books of Luke, Mark and the Acts of the Apostles.
THE SAINT THOMAS CHOIR & CHOIR SCHOOL
The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys is considered by many to be the leading ensemble in the Anglican choral tradition in the United States. The choir performs regularly with the period instrument ensemble, Concert Royal, or with Orchestra of St. Luke’s as part of its own concert series. Its primary raison d’être, however, is to provide music for five choral services each week. Live webcasts of all choral services and further information including recordings of the choir may be found at www.SaintThomasChurch.org
CONCERT ROYAL
Founded by Artistic Director James Richman, Concert Royal, performs the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries exclusively on original instruments, presenting a multifaceted approach to the period by programming all genres of music from orchestral, vocal, and chamber music to opera and opera-ballet. The ensemble has been in the forefront of the Baroque and Classic revival in the United States, with innovative performances of the major repertoire of the period featuring the foremost performer/scholars in the field. This work has included the first ongoing program of Baroque opera on original instruments with period costumes and staging, as well as premieres from the chamber music and chamber orchestra repertoire. The ensemble has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the E. Nakamichi Baroque Festival, and Spoleto Festival USA, Bermuda Festival, and the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, among others, and tours regularly with the New York Baroque Dance Company. Together they have appeared across the United States and abroad in Canada, England, France, Germany and Mexico.
JAMES RICHMAN
Artistic Director and founder of Concert Royal, James Richman is a prominent harpsichordist and fortepianist, and a leading conductor of Baroque music and opera. He was winner of the Bodky Competition of the Cambridge Society of Early Music, and in addition was a laureate of the Bruges Competition and a prize winner in the Paris Harpsichord Competition of the Festival Estival and the First International Fortepiano Competition (Paris). In appearances at the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Spoleto Festival USA, the E. Nakamichi Baroque Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, as well as in regular series in New York, he has presented staged and concert performances of such important works as Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Fêtes d’Hébé, Pygmalion, Les Indes Galantes, and Le Temple de la Gloire; Handel’s Ariodante, Acis and Galatea, Alessandro, Il Pastor Fido and Terpsicore, Glück’s Orfeo, Purcell’s King Arthur and Dido and Aeneas, Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea, J.C. Bach’s Amadis des Gaulles, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Le Devin du Village. He is also Artistic Director and conductor of the Dallas Bach Society and Music Director of the New York Baroque Dance Company, and recently led the Hanover Band at the Pollença Festival in Majorca. In 1996 he was made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for his contributions to the art of music.
DANIEL BECKWITH
Daniel Beckwith has conducted in most of the major opera houses throughout North America and Europe. With repertoire spanning the 17th to 21th centuries, he has been hailed as one of the most exciting conductors of his generation. Mr. Beckwith’s Metropolitan Opera debut was in 1995, followed by important debuts conducting the works of Handel, both nationally (Seattle Opera) and internationally (Grand Theâtre du Genève, The Glyndebourne Festival). Concert appearances include Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, the Juilliard Orchestra, Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, Spain’s Santander Festival with soprano Renée Fleming, the Hartford Symphony, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, both with Ms. Fleming. Mr. Beckwith is Interim Organist at St. Ignatius Loyola and Assistant Organist at Temple Emanu-EL, both in New York City.
TICKET INFORMATION
Order concert tickets and recordings online at: www.SaintThomasChurch.org
E-mail:
ST THOMAS CHURCH
One West 53rd Street, New York, New York 10019-5496
Phone: 212-664-9360
PRESS CONTACT
DAN DUTCHER PUBLIC RELATIONS, Dan Dutcher, 917-566-8413,
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