For Immediate Release

Contact:
Katlyn Morahan
Morahan Arts and Media
katlyn@morahanartsandmedia.com
(610) 914-3152

THE GRAND TRADITION CONTINUES: ORATORIO SOCIETY PRESENTS ITS ANNUAL MESSIAH, REIMAGINED DIGITALLY

Available to Stream for Free Beginning Monday, December 21

Featuring Soloists Susanna Phillips, Heather Petrie, Joshua Blue, and Sidney Outlaw

“What mattered most, of course, was the fine music-making.” - The New York Times

November 23, 2020, New York, NY — The Oratorio Society of New York, led by Music Director Kent Tritle, continues its tradition of presenting an annual performance of Handel’s Messiah—a yearly occurrence since 1874—with a special, reimagined digital offering. Available to stream at www.osny.org beginning on Monday, December 21 at 8pm ET, the virtual concert features 24 members of the Oratorio Society, performing alongside 12 instrumentalists, and joined by soloists soprano Susanna Phillips, contralto Heather Petrie, tenor Joshua Blue, and baritone Sidney Outlaw. The joyful “Hallelujah Chorus” features additional video appearances from across the Oratorio Society’s wider membership, filmed separately.

The concert was filmed outdoors this fall, adhering to CDC guidelines regarding social distancing and masking. In addition, participants produced negative Covid tests prior to arriving for the filming and received temperature checks on-site.

Concert Information

Selections from Handel’s Messiah
Presented by Oratorio Society of New York
Premieres Monday, December 21 at 8pm ET

Free to access at: https://www.osny.org

Oratorio Society of New York
Kent Tritle, Music Director
with soloists:
Susanna Phillips, soprano
Heather Petrie, contralto
Joshua Blue, tenor
Sidney Outlaw, baritone

About the Artists

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 New York City Ballet, 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.

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 and the American Symphony Orchestra, and Chair of the Organ Department of the Manhattan School of Music.

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

During the 20-21 season, British-American tenor Joshua Blue will sing Rinuccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He was scheduled to return to Washington National Opera to sing the role of Jaquino in Beethoven’s Fidelio; perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center and Oberlin Conservatory of Music; and sing Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Jacksonville Symphony and Eugene Symphony.

Last season, Blue performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the National Symphony Orchestra for the Opening Festival of The REACH at the Kennedy Center. Opera engagements featured role debuts as Tamino with Washington National Opera in addition to scheduled roles of Alfred in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Don Ottavio with the Berkshire Opera Festival. Concerts last season marked a return to Carnegie Hall for Handel’s Messiah; Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Florida Orchestra; and a program called Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do: Songs from Gay Harlem with the New York Festival of Song.

Highlights of the 18-19 season included debuts at the Kennedy Center as Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata and Act I of Puccini’s La bohème in concert with the National Symphony Orchestra. He joined Wolf Trap Opera to sing Harlekin in Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis and traveled to Japan to cover the role of Triquet in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival. Previous seasons included his debut at Carnegie Hall in Handel’s Messiah; performances in Moravec/Campbell’s Sanctuary Road; and the American premiere of Glass’s The Trial at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

Blue earned his B.M. from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and his M.M. from The Juilliard School. He is an alumnus of the Cafritz Young Artist program at Washington National Opera.

Lauded by The New York Times as a “terrific singer” with a “deep, rich timbre,” Sidney Outlaw continues to delight audiences in the U.S. and abroad with his rich and versatile baritone and engaging stage presence. Mr. Outlaw 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. In September 2018, Sidney released a major recording as a soloist of Handel’s Messiah with The Baltimore Symphony.

The 2019-2020 season included his San Francisco Opera debut as the First Mate in Billy Budd, Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra, Tommy McIntyre in Fellow Travelers with Madison Opera, Dizzy Gillespie in Yardbird with New Orleans Opera, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Colorado Symphony, and Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with the Toledo Symphony.

A sought-after concert singer and recitalist, Mr. Outlaw made his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 2013 with his mentor, renowned pianist Warren Jones. Mr. Outlaw debuted with the Oratorio Society of New York in 2008 in Handel’s Messiah, which was also his Carnegie Hall debut. Since then, he has been a frequent performer with the organization performing such works as Mendelssohn's Elijah and Bach’s Mass in B minor.

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. 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.

During this highly unusual season of socially-distanced singing, Heather is thrilled to have had the  opportunity to record concerts with the Oratorio Society, Danbury Symphony Orchestra, and St. George’s Choral Society. Under normal circumstances, she performs frequently with the New York Philharmonic, Musica Sacra, the Choir of St Ignatius Loyola, the Choir of Temple Emanu-El, and the Cathedral Choir of Saint John the Divine. In addition to numerous operatic roles, she has been a member of the opera chorus at both Bard Summerscape and the Princeton Festival, 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. She holds degrees from Bard College and SUNY Purchase Conservatory.

Alabama-born soprano Susanna Phillips, recipient of The Metropolitan Opera’s 2010 Beverly Sills Artist Award, is a frequent and much-admired guest artist with the Oratorio Society of New York. In the past six seasons she has joined the Society for works of Brahms, Britten, Filas, Haydn, and Moravec. During the 2020-2021 season, Ms. Phillips returns to Santa Fe Opera as Lucy Harker in the world premiere of John Corigliano’s The Lord of Cries, while in concert, she sings a concert of music by Handel and Copland with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as well as Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. She also performs a duo recital alongside mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke at Friends of Chamber Music in Portland, featuring music exclusively by female composers.

Operatic highlights of recent seasons include appearances at the Metropolitan Opera for her role debut as Micaela in Carmen, as Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, and as Clémence in the Met premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin. In concert, she has sung Berg’s Sieben Frühe Lieder with the San Francisco Symphony led by Michael Tilson Thomas, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and Ravel’s Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé at La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest. A fervent chamber music collaborator, Ms. Phillips has recently teamed with such artists as bass-baritone Eric Owens, violist Paul Neubauer, and pianists Myra Huang and Anne Marie McDermott.

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