The Dessoff Choirs opens 2026-27 Season with works by Gregg Smith, Margaret Bonds, and Stravinsky, feat. Footprints Dance Company

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Contact: Katlyn Morahan | Morahan Arts and Media
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The Dessoff Choirs Opens 2026-2027 Season with 
Symphony in Motion on November 1

Works by Gregg Smith and Stravinsky Presented in Collaboration with 
Footprints Dance Company; Plus a World Premiere by Margaret Bonds

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

www.dessoff.org

October 7, 2026 (New York, NY) – The Dessoff Choirs – led by Music Director Malcolm J. Merriweather – opens its 2026-2027 season with Symphony in Motion on Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. at St. Paul & St. Andrew Church.

Dessoff joins the national 250th celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with its November concert featuring Gregg Smith’s The Continental Harmonist. This work is based on the music of William Billings, who is considered the first American choral composer. Conceived in part by Smith as a ballet, the work features a newly created dance sequence by Freddie Moore and Footprints Dance Company. The concert also includes a performance of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, also with a new dance sequence, and a Margaret Bonds world premiere.

Program Information
Symphony in Motion: Gregg Smith, Stravinsky & Margaret Bonds
Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 4:00 p.m.
Location: St. Paul & St. Andrew Church | 263 W 86th St | New York, NY 10024
Link: https://www.dessoff.org/events/symphony-in-motion 

GREGG SMITH: The Continental Harmonist 
IGOR STRAVINSKY: Symphony of Psalms
MARGARET BONDS: World Premiere

The Dessoff Choirs
Malcolm J. Merriweather, conductor
Footprints Dance Company
Freddie Moore, choreographer
Elena Belli, piano
Steven Ryan, piano

About Freddie Moore
New Jersey native Freddie Moore began his formal dance training at The Ailey School where he attended the Certificate and Scholarship Programs. Moore has danced with Ailey II, Donald Byrd/The Group, Forces of Nature, Gallman’s Newark Dance Theater, and Blue Mercury Dancing Company. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Footprints Dance Company. During his 25-year career as a dancer and choreographer, Mr. Moore has amassed credits in musicals, national television shows, music videos, and documentaries. A master teacher of the Horton technique, he conducts artist-in-residence workshops in public and private schools and has taught throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Mr. Moore has developed performing arts curriculum for schools and community-based programs and he works with churches around the world to develop liturgical dance ministries. He has received many honors for community service including commendations from the NAACP, the New Jersey Senate, the National Black Police Association, the Jersey City Community Outreach Team, and the Public Advocate for the City of New York. Mr. Moore is currently the Rehearsal Director for the Ailey Fordham Student Dancers (AFSD) and a Faculty Advisor in the Professional Division. In addition to teaching Horton at The Ailey School, he is also on faculty at the Hudson Repertory Dance Theater and the Educational Center for the Performing Arts.

About Elena Belli
Pianist Elena Belli is a versatile concert artist and influential teacher who has appeared nationally and internationally as both soloist and chamber musician. A sought-after collaborator, she has performed with prestigious instrumentalists and vocalists from leading ensembles, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has toured throughout Europe with members of the Berlin Philharmonic, and been hailed “a captivating performer…elegant and poetic” by the Correiro del Povo in Brazil. New York engagements have included residencies at the Empire Center for the Performing Arts in Albany, guest appearances with regional orchestras, and performances at Merkin Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall and Lincoln Center. 

Always a champion for new music, she has performed a broad array of world premieres, some composed expressly for her. Ms. Belli is considered by her colleagues to be an extraordinarily effective educator, teaching developing young pianists passion, joy, solid musicianship and consummate technique. She takes an active role in promoting young talent, and is often invited to conduct Master Classes for aspiring young pianists. For over a decade, she chaired the celebrated AMTL Young Musicians Concerts at Carnegie Recital Hall. Her students consistently excel at competitions, and music remains a part of their lives forever. At present, she thoroughly enjoys her ongoing position as pianist and assistant conductor for the West Village Chorale, with whom she has toured throughout Canada, Croatia, Greece, and most recently Spain and Portugal. 

Past faculty positions have included The New School and Concordia College. Currently, she is on the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, and the Hoff-Barthelson Music School.

About Steven Ryan
Steven Ryan, piano, has been Dessoff’s accompanist and keyboard soloist since 1997. In recent years, Mr. Ryan has performed in Russia, Germany, Austria, France, and Italy. In 2014, he was featured in the Voices Across the Pacific festival in Sydney, Australia, playing a solo concert and working with choirs. He regularly performs with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra – most recently as harpsichordist and organist for their Messiah. He performed Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra.

He has played celesta with the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall; piano, harpsichord, and organ with Dessoff; and synthesizer with the Moody Blues. Conductors he has collaborated with include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Dutoit, Neeme Järvi, Sir Neville Marriner, Gerard Schwarz, Xian Zhang, and Maxim Shostakovich.

Mr. Ryan was the pianist and held the Eric Whitacre residency at Montclair State University. He performed at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, premiering works by Paula Prestini, among others. In the summer of 2022, he toured with Montclair State University’s Symphonic Band throughout Germany and Austria, during which Mr. Ryan was the soloist in Olivier Messiaen’s Couleurs de la Cité céleste. In October 2022, he also performed with Voces8 at Merkin Hall.

In 2000, Mr. Ryan won second prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, and in 2001 he took first place in the Concours des Grand Amateurs de Piano in France.

About The Dessoff Choirs
The Dessoff Choirs, under the baton of Malcolm J. Merriweather, Music Director, is one of the leading choruses in New York City, with an established reputation for pioneering performances of choral works from the Renaissance era through the 21st century. Since its founding in 1924, Dessoff’s mission is to enrich the lives of its audiences and members by giving voice to new, rarely heard, or forgotten choral music and composers; and to expand the audience for great choral works. As one of the oldest continuing choruses in New York City, we do everything we can to keep choral music alive, relevant, and appreciated by our audiences and members. 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.

One of the key tenets of Dessoff’s mission has been to offer rarely-performed choral music and, at the same time, provide talented singers the opportunity to sing some of the world’s finest choral masterpieces. Dessoff fulfills this twin charge by producing its own concerts each season (often with an emphasis on the music of living composers), and, as one of the top choruses in New York City,  by performing with major New York and visiting orchestras. The ‘s’ in Choirs connotes the group’s various incarnations—from Dessoff’s core group of 60 singers, to the Symphonic Choir assembled for larger engagements and Chamber Choir selected to present more intimate works.

The 2026/27 season’s first concert features Gregg Smith’s The Continental Harmonist and Igor Stravinsky’s A Symphony of Psalms, both with newly choreographed dances, along with a Margaret Bonds world premiere. In December, Dessoff will celebrate the season with its popular Messiah Sing and a holiday concert, Readings and Carols. In February, United in Song showcases Dessoff’s commitment to intergenerational singing as we host four high school choirs at Brooklyn College, and to round out the season, Dessoff will perform Beethoven’s monumental Missa Solemnis at Harlem’s Mother AME Zion Church.

The 2025/26 season recognized Maestro Merriweather’s twin ten-year anniversaries: as Dessoff’s ninth Music Director and as a faculty member at Brooklyn College, whose Conservatory Singers perform with the choir. The season led off with performances of Adolphus Hailstork’s The World Called, Herbert Howells’s Requiem, and Tania León’s It’s a journey, commissioned to honor Dessoff’s 100th anniversary, and concluded with Bach’s B Minor Mass, performed with a period orchestra and with current and former Brooklyn College Conservatory students and former Dessoff Choirs assistant conductors among the soloists and ensemble.

 Dessoff continues to receive invitations to perform with major New York and visiting orchestras. In November 2023, Dessoff joined the New York Philharmonic to perform Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and in December 2025, Dessoff appeared with Andrea Bocelli in sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden, as they will do again in December 2026. Past invited performances include Britten’s War Requiem and Mahler’s Symphony No.8 with Lorin Maazel in his final concerts as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. Over the course of its 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, released in February 2023, received rave reviews. An earlier CD of Bonds’s music, MARGARET BONDS: The Ballad of the Brown King & Selected Songs, was also well received. Dessoff is also featured on the 2024 Grammy Award-winning “Rough Magic” by Roomful of Teeth in a Dessoff-commissioned Eve Beglarian work, None More Than You. 

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. Please visit www.dessoff.org for more information.

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 and the Tania León Endowed Chair of Music at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Renowned as an interpreter of symphonic choral masterworks, Merriweather has led major performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor, St. John Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Handel’s Messiah, and is recognized internationally for his advocacy of Margaret Bonds, with world premiere recordings of The Ballad of the Brown King, Credo, and Simon Bore the Cross (AVIE Records). He has guest-conducted ensembles including the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Novus Orchestra, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Highlights of his 2026–2027 season include preparing the New York Philharmonic Chorus for five exciting programs for Maestro Gustavo Dudamel including John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls, Verdi’s Tosca, and Bernstein’s Mass. He returns to The Dessoff Choirs, to conduct Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, newly edited choral arrangements and completions by Margaret Bonds, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and prepares the chorus for two appearances with Andrea Bocelli at Madison Square Garden.

The 2025–2026 season featured four world premieres: David Lang’s The Wealth of Nations and Ellen Reid’s Earth Between Oceans with the New York Philharmonic Chorus, Mark Campbell and Peter Boyer’s A Hundred Years On with The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Crossing, and the title role in Frederick with Music Worcester. In celebration of his tenth season with the Dessoff Choirs, Merriweather conducted Howells’s Requiem, Hailstork’s The World Called, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with period orchestra, a reprise of Tania León’s It’s a journey, and appeared twice with Andrea Bocelli at Madison Square Garden.

Merriweather opened his 2024–2025 season at Disney Concert Hall with music of Mary Lou Williams for Solange Knowles’s Glory to Glory: A Revival of Devotional Art; conducted Brahms’s Requiem at Town Hall for the Dessoff Choirs’ centennial with Will Liverman and Joélle Harvey; lead the Buffalo Philharmonic in Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s Sanctuary Road and Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations; lead the Dessoff Choirs centennial with Verdi’s Requiem at Trinity Church with Angela Meade, J’Nai Bridges, Won Whi Choi, and Kevin Short; and prepared the Caramoor Festival Chorus for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

He led the world premiere of Handel: Made in America at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, staged performances of Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard with Trinity Wall Street, and prepared the New York Philharmonic Chorus for Jaap van Zweden in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for the reopening of David Geffen Hall. In China, he prepared the New York Philharmonic Chorus for the world premiere of Émigré with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

Merriweather has conducted at Jones Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Disney Concert Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Westminster Abbey, and the Vatican before Pope Francis. He served as founding Artistic Director of Voices of Haiti, a children’s choir established by the Andrea Bocelli Foundation in Port-au-Prince and was previously on the music staff at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Dr. Merriweather earned degrees from Eastman, Manhattan School of Music, and Syracuse University, and was a fellow at Tanglewood. Connect with him on social media @maestroweather and at malcolmjmerriweather.com.

Photo at top of release by Dan Wright

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