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Press Releases
New Amsterdam Singers to Present Poems, Letters, and Premieres
The New Amsterdam Singers (NAS), led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will present its final concert of the season, titled Poems, Letters, and Premieres, Thursday, May 28, 2015 at 8:00 P.M. at Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, 554 West End Avenue (at 87th Street). The program will feature the New York City premieres of two major works: Nobody by Michael Dellaira, on poems of Emily Dickinson for chorus and oboe, and Dear Theo by Ben Moore on letters from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo, for a cappella chorus. Wind instruments will also be employed in Cecil Effinger’s Four Pastorales for chorus and oboe, and Eric Whitacre’s She Weeps Over Rahoon for women’s voices and English horn. Andrew Adelson will perform the oboe and English horn parts.
The concert also will include two a cappella cycles in French: Paul Hindemith’s Six Chansons on Rilke texts, and Francis Poulenc’s Petites Voix on poems by Madeleine Ley for women’s voices. NAS tenors and basses will sing French Choruses from Leonard Bernstein’s incidental music to the play, The Lark, and Matthew Harris’s Drinking Song.
Michael Dellaira’s music exploits the qualities of both speech and song, and encompasses genres from folk music to voice synthesis on computers. According to the American critic Eric Salzman, “[Dellaira] has created a personal musical language that combines the harmonic vocabulary and rhythmic interest of rock music with the technical rigor of the best modern classical music.” Born in Schenectady, New York, Dellaira was educated in both philosophy and music. His primary teachers were Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, Paul Lansky, and Goffredo Petrassi and Franco Donatoni. In addition, in two residencies at The Composers Conference, he studied with Roger Sessions and Mario Davidovsky.
The music of American composer Ben Moore has been performed by many leading singers, including soprano Deborah Voigt, mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham and Frederica von Stade, tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Robert White, baritone Nathan Gunn, and six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. Dear Theo is a setting of selected passages from the letters of Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo for SATB chorus. The work weaves together major emotional themes of their 18-year correspondence. Moore graduated from Hamilton College and earned an MFA from The Parsons School of Design. The New Amsterdam Singers performed his The Lake Isle of Innisfree in its concerts in March 2015.
Cecil Effinger, who died in 1990, was a prolific composer who wrote 125 works in all mediums. The Four Pastorales is his best-known work. Effinger was well known in his native Colorado as a composer and college professor and recognized worldwide as the inventor of Music Writer — a typewriter for music notation — and the Tempo Watch, a device for discovering the tempo of a performance as it is played.
New Amsterdam Singers The New Amsterdam Singers was founded in 1968 by Clara Longstreth. A recent issue of The New Yorker called Ms. Longstreth “one of the more imaginative choral programmers around” and the New Amsterdam Singers “a superb amateur group.” The New York Times described the chorus’s June 2012 concert as “a varied and beautifully performed a cappella program.” NAS has performed with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein; American Russian Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall under Leon Botstein; Concordia Orchestra and Anonymous Four in Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light with Marin Alsop at Avery Fisher Hall; and with the Limon Dance Company in Kodály’s Missa Brevis. In 2010, the chorus sang concerts in Cuba and at a Holiday Open House at the White House. In 2013, NAS toured South Africa. Andrew Adelson can be heard playing both oboe and English horn in orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and as a soloist in the U.S. and abroad. He has been the solo English horn/oboe with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra since 2000. He has also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Mexico City Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, he has played with the Aspen Wind Quintet and Bargemusic. Mr. Adelson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with John Ferrillo and Elaine Douvas. He is an adjunct professor at Montclair State University. For further information call (914) 712-8708 or go online to www.nasingers.org. Tickets are available at the door for $25, $15 for seniors and $10 for students. Tickets are also available online in advance for $20 at www.nasingers.org, by phone at (914) 712-8708, or by mail (New Amsterdam Singers, P.O. Box 373, Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025). New Amsterdam Singers Poems, Letters, and Premieres Thursday, May 28, 2015, at 8:00 P.M. Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church 554 West End Avenue (at 87th Street) Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Petites Voix Eric Whitacre (b.1970) She Weeps Over Rahoon Leonard Bernstein (1918-90) French Choruses from The Lark Matthew Harris (b.1956) Drinking Song Michael Dellaira (b.1949) Nobody Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) Six Chansons Ben Moore (b.1960) Dear Theo Cecil Effinger (1914-90) Four Pastorales
The concert also will include two a cappella cycles in French: Paul Hindemith’s Six Chansons on Rilke texts, and Francis Poulenc’s Petites Voix on poems by Madeleine Ley for women’s voices. NAS tenors and basses will sing French Choruses from Leonard Bernstein’s incidental music to the play, The Lark, and Matthew Harris’s Drinking Song.
Michael Dellaira’s music exploits the qualities of both speech and song, and encompasses genres from folk music to voice synthesis on computers. According to the American critic Eric Salzman, “[Dellaira] has created a personal musical language that combines the harmonic vocabulary and rhythmic interest of rock music with the technical rigor of the best modern classical music.” Born in Schenectady, New York, Dellaira was educated in both philosophy and music. His primary teachers were Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, Paul Lansky, and Goffredo Petrassi and Franco Donatoni. In addition, in two residencies at The Composers Conference, he studied with Roger Sessions and Mario Davidovsky.
The music of American composer Ben Moore has been performed by many leading singers, including soprano Deborah Voigt, mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham and Frederica von Stade, tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Robert White, baritone Nathan Gunn, and six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. Dear Theo is a setting of selected passages from the letters of Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo for SATB chorus. The work weaves together major emotional themes of their 18-year correspondence. Moore graduated from Hamilton College and earned an MFA from The Parsons School of Design. The New Amsterdam Singers performed his The Lake Isle of Innisfree in its concerts in March 2015.
Cecil Effinger, who died in 1990, was a prolific composer who wrote 125 works in all mediums. The Four Pastorales is his best-known work. Effinger was well known in his native Colorado as a composer and college professor and recognized worldwide as the inventor of Music Writer — a typewriter for music notation — and the Tempo Watch, a device for discovering the tempo of a performance as it is played.
New Amsterdam Singers The New Amsterdam Singers was founded in 1968 by Clara Longstreth. A recent issue of The New Yorker called Ms. Longstreth “one of the more imaginative choral programmers around” and the New Amsterdam Singers “a superb amateur group.” The New York Times described the chorus’s June 2012 concert as “a varied and beautifully performed a cappella program.” NAS has performed with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein; American Russian Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall under Leon Botstein; Concordia Orchestra and Anonymous Four in Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light with Marin Alsop at Avery Fisher Hall; and with the Limon Dance Company in Kodály’s Missa Brevis. In 2010, the chorus sang concerts in Cuba and at a Holiday Open House at the White House. In 2013, NAS toured South Africa. Andrew Adelson can be heard playing both oboe and English horn in orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and as a soloist in the U.S. and abroad. He has been the solo English horn/oboe with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra since 2000. He has also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Mexico City Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, he has played with the Aspen Wind Quintet and Bargemusic. Mr. Adelson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with John Ferrillo and Elaine Douvas. He is an adjunct professor at Montclair State University. For further information call (914) 712-8708 or go online to www.nasingers.org. Tickets are available at the door for $25, $15 for seniors and $10 for students. Tickets are also available online in advance for $20 at www.nasingers.org, by phone at (914) 712-8708, or by mail (New Amsterdam Singers, P.O. Box 373, Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025). New Amsterdam Singers Poems, Letters, and Premieres Thursday, May 28, 2015, at 8:00 P.M. Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church 554 West End Avenue (at 87th Street) Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Petites Voix Eric Whitacre (b.1970) She Weeps Over Rahoon Leonard Bernstein (1918-90) French Choruses from The Lark Matthew Harris (b.1956) Drinking Song Michael Dellaira (b.1949) Nobody Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) Six Chansons Ben Moore (b.1960) Dear Theo Cecil Effinger (1914-90) Four Pastorales
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