The Dessoff Choirs Announces 2025-2026 Season

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mallory McFarland | Morahan Arts and Media
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The Dessoff Choirs Announces 2025-2026 Season

Herbert Howells’s Requiem - November 8, 2025 
Welcome Yule - December 6, 2025
Messiah Sing - December 10, 2025
Bach’s B Minor Mass - April 18, 2026

“Full-bodied sound and suppleness” –The New York Times

www.dessoff.org

June 30, 2025 (New York, NY) – The Dessoff Choirs – led by Music Director Malcolm J. Merriweather – today announces its 2025-2026 season. Fresh off its 100th anniversary season in 2024-2025, The Dessoff Choirs has been a fixture on the New York classical music scene, known for introducing unknown, long-forgotten, or newly composed works to American audiences, while Dessoff’s nine music directors have continued expanding founder Margarete Dessoff’s legacy. Malcolm J. Merriweather, Dessoff’s current music director, has used this podium to reintroduce the works of Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, and Valerie Capers, along with commissioning new works. Dessoff’s next season includes performances of Howells’s Requiem and Adolphus Hailstork’s The World Called, the return of Dessoff’s popular annual concerts Welcome Yule and Messiah Sing, and a presentation of Bach’s B Minor Mass, complete with full orchestra and soloists.

The 2025-26 season also marks Merriweather’s tenth year leading The Dessoff Choirs. Music Director Malcolm J. Merriweather shares, “Two anniversaries in a row! Following Dessoff’s incredible 100th anniversary season, I am thrilled to be celebrating my tenth year with The Dessoff Choirs.”

Kicking off Dessoff’s 2025-2026 season is a performance of Herbert Howells’s Requiem on Saturday, November 8, 2025 at 4:00 p.m. at Brick Church. This work for unaccompanied choir will be paired with Adolphus Hailstork’s The World Called. Known for blending African, American, and European traditions, and influenced by his studies with Nadia Boulanger, Hailstork’s work is based on Rita Dove's poem, Testimonial, that evokes themes of nostalgia, youth, and promise.  

Dessoff then offers its annual holiday concerts: Welcome Yule on Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 7:00 p.m., celebrating the 500th anniversary of Palestrina’s birth, followed by Messiah Sing, which provides audience members the opportunity to join the choir for Handel’s vibrant choruses, with Dessoff members performing the arias on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. Both concerts take place at James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary.

For its last concert of the season, Dessoff presents Bach’s B Minor Mass, complete with a full orchestra and soloists, on Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. at Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem. Considered a cornerstone of Western music, it is the perfect prism through which to view Bach’s compositional genius. No one knows why this Lutheran composer ever chose to compose a Catholic mass in the first place, and why, once composed, it was never performed in its entirety (and its final form) until several decades after Bach’s death. Perhaps the most convincing reason is that Bach compiled the B Minor Mass to stand as a catalog of all the musical styles known at that time, from the earliest Gregorian chants to the newly fashionable style “galant”. In creating a work that has come to be regarded as the apex of human artistic expression, Bach also left a musical catalog for future generations.

Program Information

Herbert Howells’ Requiem
Saturday, November 8, 2025 at 4:00 p.m.
Brick Church | 1140 Park Avenue | New York, NY 10128
Tickets: $25-45
Link: https://www.dessoff.org/events/howells-and-hailstork 

HERBERT HOWELLS: Requiem
ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK: The World Called

The Dessoff Choirs & Orchestra
Malcolm J. Merriweather, conductor
Raymond Nagem, organ
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Welcome Yule: Celebrating Palestrina
Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 7:00 p.m.
James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary | 3041 Broadway | New York, NY 10027
Link: https://www.dessoff.org/events/welcome-yule-2025 

Program to be announced.
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Messiah Sing
Wednesday, December 10, 2025 at 7:00 p.m.
James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary | 3041 Broadway | New York, NY 10027
Link: https://www.dessoff.org/events/messiah-sing-2025 

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL: Messiah

The Dessoff Choirs
Malcolm J. Merriweather, conductor
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Bach: B Minor Mass
Saturday, April 18, 2026 4:00 at p.m.
Mother AME Zion Church | 140 W 137th St | New York, NY 10030
Link: https://www.dessoff.org/events/b-minor-mass 

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: B Minor Mass

The Dessoff Choirs & Orchestra
Malcolm J. Merriweather, conductor

About The Dessoff Choirs
The Dessoff Choirs, one of the leading choruses in New York City, is an independent chorus with an established reputation for pioneering performances of choral works from the Renaissance era through the 21st century. Founded in 1924 by Margarete Dessoff, the chorus celebrated its centennial during the 2024-25 season with programs that reflected music from its rich history and moved us forward into the next 100 years with new collaborations and commissions. 

The ‘s’ in Choirs connotes the group’s various incarnations – from Dessoff’s core group of 50 singers, to the Symphonic Choir assembled for larger engagements and Chamber Choir selected to present more intimate works. Since its founding in 1924, Dessoff’s mission is to enrich the lives of its audiences and members by giving voice to new or rarely heard, forgotten music and composers; and to bring great choral works to New York audiences in new ways. Dessoff concerts, professional collaborations, community outreach, and educational initiatives are dedicated to stimulating public interest in and appreciation of choral music as an art form that enhances the culture and life of these times.

With repertoire ranging over a wide variety of eras and styles, Dessoff’s musical acumen and flexibility has been recognized with invitations from major orchestras for oratorios and orchestral works. Last season included a well-received Brahms’s Requiem at Town Hall, Florence Price’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight and a performance of Verdi’s Requiem in partnership with Trinity Church, which included the premiere of a It’s a Journey by Tania León, commissioned by Dessoff to honor it’s centennial. Other past performances include Britten’s War Requiem and Mahler’s Symphony No.8 with Lorin Maazel in his final performances as Music Director with the New York Philharmonic. Over the course of its near-100-year history, Dessoff has presented many world premieres, including works by Virgil Thomson, George Perle, Paul Moravec, and Ricky Ian Gordon; the first American performance in nearly 100 years of Montemezzi’s opera La Nave with Teatro Grattacielo; and the American premieres of Philip Glass’s Symphony No.5 and John Tavener’s all-night vigil, The Veil of the Temple.

Dessoff's world-premiere recording of Margaret Bonds's Credo and Simon Bore the Cross was released in February 2023 and received rave reviews. WRTI wrote that “Margaret Bonds: Credo, Simon Bore the Cross brings new luster, and the utmost care of execution. Under the baton of Malcolm J. Merriweather, The Dessoff Choirs has a profound simpatico with Bonds’ mature compositional style...” We are also featured on a new album from Roomful of Teeth, Rough Magic, in a recently commissioned Eve Beglarian work, None More Than You.

Other recent discography includes Margaret Bonds: The Ballad of the Brown King & Selected Songs, a debut recording of Margaret Bonds’s crowning achievement, which was cited as a “Best Classical Recording of 2019” by WQXR-FM Radio; Reflections, featuring music by Convery, Corigliano, Moravec, and Rorem; and Glories on Glories, a collection of American song featuring composers from Billings to Ives.

The Dessoff Choirs is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Learn more at www.dessoff.org.

About Malcolm J. Merriweather
Grammy nominated conductor, Malcolm J. Merriweather, is Director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus and Music Director of New York City’s, The Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra. He is Professor of Music and the Tania León Chair of Music at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

He is a sought-after interpreter of symphonic choral works most recently conducting grand performances of Bach’s St. John Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Handel’s Messiah. In addition to core symphonic works, he is known for the world premiere recordings of The Ballad of the Brown King, Credo, and Simon Bore the Cross by Margaret Bonds (AVIE Records) with The Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra. A frequent guest conductor, he has conducted the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Novus Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Merriweather opened his season conducting works of Mary Lou Williams at Disney Concert Hall for Solange Knowles series, Glory to Glory (A Revival For Spiritual and Devotional Art). At the historic Town Hall he conducted Brahms’s Requiem for the centennial celebration of the Dessoff Choirs with soloists Will Liverman, baritone, and Joélle Harvey, soprano. He led the Buffalo Philharmonic in performances of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road and Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations. His season concluded with performances of Verdi’s Requiem at Trinity Church, Wall Street with the Dessoff Choirs, Downtown Voices, the Trinity Choir, and NOVUS with soloists Angela Meade, J’Nai Bridges, Won Whi Choi, and Kevin Short.

Highlights from his 2023-2024 included a return to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to conduct choir and orchestra in the world premiere of Handel: Made in America with Terrance McKnight and soloists, Latonia Moore, J’Nai Bridges, Noah Stewart, and Davóne Tines. With the Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra he conducted Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and two contemporary oratorios about the lives of Sojourner Truth (Valerie Capers) and Anne Frank (James Whitbourn). Continuing in his role as Director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus, he prepared the professional choir for the reprise of Émigré, An Oratorio and Mahler 2 with the New York Philharmonic. In China with the New York Philharmonic Choir, he prepared the ensemble for the world premiere of Émigré with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

Maestro Merriweather’s 2022-2023 began leading the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Novus Orchestra in three performances (staged) of Considering Matthew Shepard. His new appointment as Director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus launched by preparing the professional choir for three programs throughout the season for Maestro Jaap van Zweden including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for the reopening of David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. With the Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra he conducted Duruflé’s Requiem, Bach’s St. John Passion and motets by Vicente Lusitano, the first Black composer to have music published. This season included the long-awaited release of the premiere recording of Margaret Bonds’s Credo and Simon Bore the Cross with the AVIE label.

He has served on the faculty at Manhattan School of Music and was the founding Artistic Director of “Voices of Haiti,” a 60-member children’s choir in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, operated by the Andrea Bocelli Foundation.

Dr. Merriweather has earned degrees from Eastman, Manhattan School of Music, and Syracuse University and was a fellow at Tanglewood. Connect with him on Twitter and Instagram @maestroweather and at malcolmjmerrweather.com. 

Photo at top of release by Dan Wright

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