Oratorio Society of New York Returns for Holiday Tradition of Handel's Messiah in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, December 20

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

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Katlyn Morahan
Morahan Arts and Media
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ORATORIO SOCIETY OF NEW YORK RETURNS FOR
HOLIDAY TRADITION OF HANDEL’S MESSIAH IN
STERN AUDITORIUM / PERELMAN STAGE AT CARNEGIE HALL,
DECEMBER 20, 2021

www.osny.org

November 3, 2021, New York, NY — The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY) presents its annual holiday tradition, Handel’s Messiah on Monday, December 20, 2021 at 8pm in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. OSNY Music Director Kent Tritle conducts the chorus and the Orchestra of the Society with featured soloists soprano Leslie Fagan, contralto Heather Petrie, tenor Joshua Blue, and baritone Sidney Outlaw. The performance includes Part I of Messiah (Christmas section), with highlights from Parts II and III, and is presented without an intermission. OSNY has been presenting Handel’s Messiah every year since 1874.

Additional concerts in OSNY’s 2021-22 concert season include: Pärt, Britten & Gabrieli on Tuesday, November 9, 2021 at 7:30pm at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, with organist Raymond Nagem, and conducted by Kent Tritle, David Rosenmeyer, and William Janiszewski; Bach’s Magnificat and Mozart’s Coronation Mass on March 8, 2022 at 7:30pm at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine featuring soprano Hyeyoung Moon, mezzo-soprano Jasmin White, tenor Patrick Bessenbacher, and bass-baritone William Socolof with the Orchestra of the Society; and Mendelssohn’s Elijah on May 9, 2022 at 8pm in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall featuring soprano Susanna Phillips, mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford, tenor Isaiah Bell, baritone Justin Austin, and the Orchestra of the Society. The Oratorio Society of New York also hosts its 45th annual Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition on April 9, 2022 at 1:30pm in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Concert Information

Handel’s Messiah
Monday, December 20, 2021 at 8pm
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall | 881 7th Ave | New York, NY 10019|
Tickets:  $28 - $100
Link: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2021/12/20/Oratorio-Society-of-New-York-0800PM

HANDEL: Messiah Part I (complete) with highlights from Parts II & III

Oratorio Society of New York
Kent Tritle, conductor
Leslie Fagan, soprano
Heather Petrie, contralto
Joshua Blue, tenor
Sidney Outlaw, baritone
Orchestra of the Society

About the Oratorio Society of New York
The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY) is one of the oldest musical organizations in the United States and has become New York City’s standard for grand choral performance. Founded in 1873 by Leopold Damrosch, the Society has played an integral role in the musical life of the city. In its early years, the Society established a fund to finance the building of a new concert hall, a cause taken up in earnest by the Society’s fifth president, Andrew Carnegie. In 1891, and under the direction of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, the Society helped inaugurate this new Music Hall, which would be renamed Carnegie Hall several years later.

The Society continues to perform several times each season at Carnegie Hall. Its annual performances of Handel’s Messiah, a tradition unbroken since 1874, have become a holiday favorite with New York audiences. In addition to its collaborations with the New York Philharmonic and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as other performing arts institutions, the Society performs internationally every few years – including recent concerts in Japan, Uruguay, Germany, Italy, and Brazil.

The Society is also committed to commissioning and championing new works, including most recently Pulitzer prize-winning composer, Paul Moravec and Grammy Award-winning librettist, Mark Campbell’s Grammy nominated recording Sanctuary Road, available from Naxos Records.

The OSNY membership consists of avocational and professionally trained singers as well as non-singing members. Auditions are held twice annually at the beginning of the fall and winter terms. OSNY is a not-for-profit 501c3 corporation governed by a volunteer board of directors with a professional music staff.

About Kent Tritle
Kent Tritle is one of America’s leading choral conductors. In addition to being Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York, he is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and Music Director of Musica Sacra, New York’s longest continuously performing professional chorus.

In addition, Kent is Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music and is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also the organist of the New York Philharmonic.

Called “the brightest star in New York's choral music world” by The New York Times, Kent Tritle founded the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series at New York’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, and led it to great acclaim from 1989 to 2011. From 1996 to 2004, he was Music Director of New York’s The Dessoff Choirs. He hosted “The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle,” a weekly program on New York’s WQXR, from 2010 to 2014. Kent Tritle has made more than 20 recordings on the Telarc, Naxos, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, VAI and MSR Classics labels. www.kenttritle.com.

About Leslie Fagan
In addition to appearing in Handel’s Messiah with OSNY, Leslie Fagan’s journey to Carnegie Hall is jeweled with Messiah performances in Toronto, Canada, and Kyoto, Japan. This season Leslie also sings Brahms’ Requiem, Verdi’s Requiem, and premieres new songs in the Canadian Art Song Series.

Having performed under the batons of such noted conductors as Sir David Willcocks, Hans Graf, Jukke Pekke Saraste, Kent Tritle, Heinz Ferlisch, Victor Borge and Elmer Isler, highlights of Ms. Fagan's past engagements include a solo concert of music of Stravinsky and Debussy with the Bordeaux Aquitaine Symphonie Nationale, France; Bach's Weinachts Oratorium in Stuttgart, Germany; Handel's Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England; Tafelmusik Orchestra and Choir in Toronto, Ontario; and an engagement as guest soloist at the International Choral Festival in Gouda, Netherlands. Leslie premiered five Mendelssohn Lieder at Steinway Hall in New York with the Clarion Music Society. Leslie made her official Lincoln Center debut singing Carmina Burana and the world premiere of Allesandro Cadario’s Cantata for Revival and in the same season sang a double debut at Carnegie Hall with Messiah performances with both the Oratorio Society of New York with Kent Tritle and Music Sacra under the baton of Richard Westenburg. Ms. Fagan has been fortunate enough to share the stage with many great artists including Victor Borge, Lois Marshall and Maureen Forrester.

Ms. Fagan is a graduate of the University of Toronto where she studied with Madame Irene Jessner and Lois Marshall. Ms. Fagan was the recipient of a Chalmers Grant, which enabled her to study with the great Romanian soprano, Ileana Cotrubas in France and to Italy to study with Martin Isepp at the Centre for Operatic Studies Sulmona Italy, which led to an invitation to work with this master of Mozart privately in London, England. This Italian study period was made possible by the generous support of the Canada Council. Leslie is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Voice at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and has private studios in New York and her home. www.lesliefagan.com.

About Heather Petrie
Hailed as “a true contralto, with a big, deep, resonant projection that can fill a hall,” (New London Day) Heather Petrie is a familiar voice throughout the Northeast. In 2019, she was the second prize winner in the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio Solo Competition, and made her Carnegie Hall solo debut in Handel’s Messiah with the Oratorio Society of New York, on December 19, 2019. As a soloist, she has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, Voices of Ascension, Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, and the New Orchestra of Washington. She performs frequently with the New York Philharmonic, Musica Sacra, the Choir of St Ignatius Loyola, the Cathedral Choir of Saint John the Divine, Musica Viva, and Essential Voices USA 

Operatic roles include Mary (die Fliegende Holländer), Baba (The Medium), Arnalta (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro), Larina (Eugene Onegin), and Annina (die Rosenkavalier). Additionally, she has been a member of the opera chorus at both Bard Summerscape and the Princeton Festival, as well as New York City Opera, and is currently a member of the Metropolitan Opera Extra Chorus.

Heather is a founding member of the critically acclaimed, eight-voice treble group Etherea Vocal Ensemble, and is prominently featured on both of their recordings, released by Delos. Their first CD, Ceremony of Carols, reached #4 on the Billboard Traditional Classical charts and quickly became an iTunes Best-Seller. Hymn to the Dawn, their sophomore release, contains world premiere recordings of Amy Beach, Rheinberger, and Rossini pieces, amongst other classics. In Mendelssohn’s Drei Motetten, Heather “makes a quick but memorable solo contribution with her creamy contralto” (Opera News). Delos honored the group by highlighting them on their “40 Tracks for 40 Years” anniversary release, choosing Charles Gounod’s Noël, on which Heather is a soloist. Heather recently toured Russia and England with the Clarion Music Society, debuting Maximilan Steinberg’s lost masterpiece Passion Week, which the choir recorded and received a Grammy nomination for. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Voice from Bard College, and a Master of Music in Opera Performance from SUNY Purchase Conservatory. heatherpetriecontralto.com.

About Joshua Blue
During the 2021-22 season, British-American tenor Joshua Blue makes multiple role and house debuts including the Metropolitan Opera as Peter in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in a revival with the Grammy Award-winning cast of Denyce Graves, Angel Blue, and Eric Owens; Los Angeles Opera singing the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion conducted by James Conlon with members of the Hamburg Ballet choreographed by John Neumeier; Opera Philadelphia as the Duke of Mantua in the Lindy Hume production of Rigoletto led by music director Corrado Rovaris; Virginia Opera as Loge in the Jonathan Dove reduction of Das Rheingold directed by Mary Birnbaum and conducted by Adam Turner; Berkshire Opera Festival as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni led by Brian Garman; and the tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He also makes a return to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Tamino in The Magic Flute.

In 2020, Mr. Blue was the inaugural recipient of the Lotos Foundation’s James McCracken and Sandra Warfield Opera Prize. He was a semi-finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2018; received the Ellen Lopin Blair award for first place in the 2017 Oratorio Society of New York solo competition; and was noted as an Emerging Artist in the 2017 Opera Index Competition in New York City.

Mr. Blue earned his bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and graduated from The Juilliard School with a master’s degree, studying voice with Dr. Robert C. White, Jr. In 2018, Mr. Blue was an Apprentice Singer with Santa Fe Opera and is an alumnus of the Cafritz Young Artist program with the Washington National Opera. www.joshuabluetenor.com.

About Sidney Outlaw
Lauded by The New York Times as a “terrific singer” with a “deep, rich timbre” and the San Francisco Chronicle as an “opera powerhouse” with a “weighty and forthright” sound, Sidney Outlaw was the Grand Prize winner of the Concurso Internacional de Canto Montserrat Caballe in 2010 and continues to delight audiences in the U.S. and abroad with his rich and versatile baritone and engaging stage presence. A graduate of the Merola Opera Program and the Gerdine Young Artist Program at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, this rising American baritone from Brevard, North Carolina recently added a GRAMMY nomination to his list of accomplishments for the Naxos Records recording of Darius Milhaud’s 1922 opera trilogy, L’Orestie d’Eschyle in which he sang the role of Apollo.

Last season for Mr. Outlaw included his Dandini in La Cenerentola with Greensboro Opera, appearances with the Charlotte Symphony, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music and Colour of Music Festivals, his Spoleto Festival debut as Jake in Porgy and Bess, and Madison Opera’s Opera in the Park. Mr. Outlaw has been a featured recitalist with Warren Jones at Carnegie Hall and performed Elijah with the New York Choral Society. He traveled to Guinea as an Arts Envoy with the U.S. State Department, where he performed a program of American music in honor of Black History Month and in remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Mr. Outlaw won second prize in the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s International Competition, second prize in the 2011 Gerda Lissner Foundation Awards, national semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, semi-finalist in the Francisco Vin~as International Singing Competition, finalist in both Concours International Musical de Montreal and George London Foundation, and grand prize in the Florida Grand Opera/YPO Vocal Competition. He holds a Bachelor in Music Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Master of Vocal Performance from The Juilliard School. sidneyoutlaw.com.

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