The Collegiate Chorale Announces 2012-13 Season

The Collegiate Chorale, led by music director James Bagwell, announces its 71st Season, which will include three Chorale-presented concerts, five collaborative concerts, and a summer tour to the Verbier Festival.

Schoenberg's Kol Nidre and Noam Sheriff's Mechaye Hametim with the Israel Philharmonic open the season, on October 25, 2012; followed the next night by Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 and Charles Ives' Symphony No. 4 with the American Symphony Orchestra on October 26, 2012; Beatrice di Tenda featuring Angela Meade on December 5, 2012; Osvaldo Golijov's Oceana and Philip Glass' Symphony No. 7 "Toltec" featuring vocalist Biella Da Costa on February 27, 2013; and Song of Norway on April 30, 2013 with soloists Judy Kaye and Jason Danieley; all performances at Carnegie Hall. In addition, Collegiate Chorale will be featured in New York Philharmonic performances during June 2013, and will perform at the Verbier Festival in July 2013.

Schoenberg's Kol Nidre and Noam Sheriff's Mechaye Hametim (Revival of the Dead)
Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 7pm at Carnegie Hall
An encore performance of two of the works performed this summer in Israel and Salzburg, Austria, along with Grammy Award-winning baritone Thomas Hampson and the Israel Philharmonic as part of the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's New York Benefit. Zubin Mehta conducts.

Mahler's Symphony No. 8 and Ives' Symphony No. 4
Friday, October 26, 2012 at 8pm at Carnegie Hall
In a fusion of song and symphony, The Collegiate Chorale, Brooklyn Youth Chorus and American Symphony Orchestra join forces in honor of the orchestra's 50th anniversary for a performance of Mahler's massive Symphony of a Thousand. First performed in America in 1916 under the baton of the ASO's founder Leopold Stokowski, this performance of the Mahler 8 will be accompanied by Charles Ives' Symphony No. 4 and Stokowski's arrangement of John Stafford Smith's The Star-Spangled Banner. Leon Botstein conducts.

Beatrice di Tenda
Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 6pm at Carnegie Hall
His penultimate opera, Beatrice di Tenda is considered one of Vincenzo Bellini's finest works. Set in 15th century Milan and based on an actual historical figure, the opera tells of the tormented but saintly wife of the Duke of Milan, falsely accused of adultery by the scorned lover of one of her admirers and sentenced to death by her husband. Premiered in 1833 and famously revived in 1961 by Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne, The Chorale's much-anticipated opera-in-concert performance will feature the extraordinary Angela Meade in the title role. Beatrice di Tenda is characterized by ravishing melodies and exciting finales. Music Director James Bagwell conducts The Collegiate Chorale and American Symphony Orchestra.

Golijov's Oceana and Glass' Symphony No. 7
Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at 7pm Carnegie Hall
In an interesting pairing of contemporary choral compositions by Osvaldo Golijov and Philip Glass, The Chorale turns its attention towards Latin America with the New York premieres of Oceana and Symphony No. 7 "Toltec." Commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival in 1996, Golijov wrote Oceana in the spirit of a Bach cantata, but in a Latin American musical style featuring a jazz/pop vocalist, percussion, and guitars. Set to the poetry of Pablo Neruda, Oceana, in Golijov's words, is the "transmutation of passion into geometry" and that "water and longing, light and hope, the immensity of South America's nature and pain, are here transmuted into pure musical symbols, which nevertheless should be more liquid than the sea and deeper than the yearning that they represent." Venezuelan vocalist Biella Da Costa joins The Chorale in performance of this powerful musical work.

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