John Rutter to Debut New Sacred Choral Anthology at Carnegie Hall on May 27

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

John Rutter to Debut New Sacred Choral Anthology at Carnegie Hall on May 27

 

Conductor Emeritus Returns for 127^th Performance

with MidAmerica Productions

 

 

NEW YORK, NY, April 9, 2019 – In what is becoming a Memorial Day tradition, composer and conductor John Rutter will lead a gala concert for MIdAmerica Productions in Carnegie Hall. The 2019 edition, on Monday, May 27 at 8 pm, will feature his first United States performances of selections from his newly published anthology, Sacred Choruses.

 

“Anthologising is one of life’s sweet pleasures,” declares Mr. Rutter, “rather like throwing a party for your favourite friends. Imagine that, by a miracle of scheduling, there they all are in one room at one time, and as you circulate among them, you remember exactly why you wanted to be their friend in the first place, you probably remember the circumstances of your first meeting, and you are delighted to find that they haven’t changed a bit and you are still drawn to them. Also at the party are some new friends; you haven’t known them for as long, but you sense that they will remain your friends for ever.

 

“An anthology is a gathering of your friends. In the case of the Sacred Choruses collection… the room is a 384-page book—you can’t, of course, include everyone you would like to, but there’s still space for lots of friends…”

 

Mr. Rutter has programmed the following “friends” for May 27:

 

• S. BACH: Praise Our God Who Reigns in Glory (from Ascension Oratorio)
• S. BACH: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (from Cantata No. 147)
• MENDELSSOHN: Daughters of Zion (from Christus)
• HAYDN: The Heavens Are Telling (from The Creation)
• BRAHMS: How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place (from A German Requiem)
• HANDEL: Let Their Celestial Concerts All Unite (from Samson)
• SCHUBERT: Magnificat in C major
• HANDEL: Hallelujah (from Messiah)

 

Also on this part of the program will be one purely instrumental selection, Mozart’s Epistle Sonata in C major, K.336d, plus arias for the four soloists who also will perform in the Schubert Magnificat:

 

• Soprano Teresa Castillo – Let the Bright Seraphim from Handel’s Samson
• Mezzo-Soprano Sara Murphy – O Rest In the Lord from Mendelssohn’s Elijah
• Tenor Aaron Blake – In Splendor Bright from Haydn’s The Creation
• Bass Jeremy Galyon – The Trumpet Shall Sound from Handel’s Messiah

 

“A party is private, an anthology public,” concludes Mr. Rutter, “but as host/editor, your hope is that others will enjoy your friends as much as you do. As a composer, I suppose I look upon my compositions as my children, but my anthology choices are my friends, and friends are important too.”

 

One of his “children” will be on the program as well – the Gloria ­– paired, as he often likes to do, with his own edition of Monteverdi’s setting of the same text.

 

No fewer than 17 choruses from 10 states will participate in this Memorial Day gala performance. The choir for the Sacred Choruses debut will consist of more than 150 voices drawn from the following ensembles:

 

• Living Word Worship Choir, Wildwood, MO (Donna Baker, Director)
• River City Singers, Scappoose, OR (Alice Boyer, Director)
• All Saints’ Episcopal School A Cappella Choir, Fort Worth, TX (Emily Davis, Director)
• Coker UMC Chancel Choir, San Antonio, TX (Mark A. Humphrey, Director)
• Shawnee High School Choirs, Shawnee, OK (Justin Lee, Director)
• Lakeland Chorale, Wanaque, NJ (James Weber, Director)
• Glenpool High School Warrior Singers, Glenpool, OK (Kristen Womack-Hayes, Director)

 

For the two Glorias, the massed choir of 175 will consist of members of the following ensembles: 

 

• Brookdale Concordia Chorale, Belford, NJ (Cynthia & John Balme, Co-Directors)
• Sanctuary Choir of Flower Mound United Methodist Church, Flower Mound, TX (Jan Call, Director)
• Grace Presbyterian Church Sanctuary Choir, Plano, TX (Michael King, Director)
• Epworth United Methodist Church Choir, Durham, NC (David Lewis, Director)
• Norbert College Choirs, De Pere, WI (Sarah Sjolie Parks, Director)
• Chancel Choir of St. Matthews By-the-Sea, Fenwick Island, DE (Glenn Pierce, Director)
• University Park UMC Chancel Choir, Dallas, TX (Mark Pope, Director)
• The Southern Union Sound, Wadley, AL (William W. Rayfield III, Director)
• Como Park Senior High School Choir, St. Paul, MN (Carole Whitney, Director)
• Continuo Arts Symphonic Chorus, Summit NJ (Candace Wicke, Director) 2018*

 

The New England Symphonic Ensemble will perform on both parts of the concert.

 

Purchase Tickets

 

Concerts in the Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman Stage are $150, $100, and $50. Tickets may be obtained by contacting CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, visiting the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57^th Street and 7^th Avenue in New York, NY, or by going online to www.carnegiehall.org). For more information, contact molly.waymire@piptix.com

 

 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

 

John Rutter, Composer/Conductor

 

John Rutter was born in London in 1945 and received his first musical education as a chorister at Highgate School. He went on to study music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he wrote his first published compositions and conducted his first recording while still a student. 

His compositional career has embraced both large and small-scale choral works, orchestral and instrumental pieces, a piano concerto, two children's operas, music for television, and specialist writing for such groups as the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the King's Singers. His larger choral works, Gloria (1974), Requiem (1985), Magnificat (1990), Psalmfest (1993) and Mass of the Children (2003) have been performed many times around the world.

He co-edited four volumes in the Carols for Choirs series with Sir David Willcocks, and, more recently, has edited the first two volumes in the new Oxford Choral Classics series, Opera Choruses (1995) and European Sacred Music (1996). A new volume in the series, Sacred Choruses, was published in 2018.

From 1975 to 1979 he was Director of Music at Clare College, whose choir he directed in a number of broadcasts and recordings.  After giving up the Clare post to allow more time for composition, he formed the Cambridge Singers as a professional chamber choir primarily dedicated to recording, and he now divides his time between composition and conducting. 

He has guest-conducted or lectured at many concert halls, universities, churches, music festivals, and conferences in Europe, Africa, North and Central America and Australasia. In 1980 he was made an honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, and in 1988 a Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians. In 1996 the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred a Lambeth Doctorate of Music upon him in recognition of his contribution to church music. He was honored in the 2007 Queen’s New Year Honours List, being awarded a CBE for services to music.

Most of John Rutter's music is published by Oxford University Press.

 

About MidAmerica Productions

 

Maestro Peter Tiboris created and conducted his first concert in New York on January 7, 1984, at Lincoln Center, featuring The American Symphony Orchestra, soloists, and three choruses, the Louisiana Chorale of Acadiana, Camerata Singers of Baton Rouge, and Collegiate Chorale of New York. Although he didn’t realize it at the time, Mr. Tiboris had just started his own successful production company, MidAmerica Productions, which would become the foremost independent producer of choral concerts in Carnegie Hall. 

 

During its 36 years, MidAmerica Productions has brought together conductors, soloists, and choral and instrumental ensembles from the U.S. and abroad to appear at New York’s top venues, including Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Weill Recital Hall, and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall; and Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall) at Lincoln Center. In addition to presenting instrumental and classic choral works, MidAmerica Productions has championed the works of contemporary composers with approximately 92 World Premieres, 21 United States Premieres and 100 New York Premieres.

 

Additionally, MidAmerica Productions has presented concerts in numerous U.S. cities and in countries throughout the world, including Greece, England, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, France and Russia.

 

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Media Contact: 

Daniel Guss

Director of Public Relations and Publications, MidAmerica Productions

212-239-0205 x 204

dguss@midamerica-music.com