Camerata New York to Kick Off New Season with Beethoven's Ninth

Camerata New York, now in its 17h year, kicks off its second full season as resident orchestra of New York's St. Jean Baptiste Church on Thursday, October 5, 2017, with a special performance of one of the best-known and acclaimed works in the classical music canon - Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, also known as "The Choral Symphony".

Camerata New York will be joined by the St. Jean Festival Chorus, which is in its inaugural season. Soloists will include Ukrainian born soprano Antonina Chehovska; Mezzo-Soprano Anna Viemeister; tenor Riad Ymeri; and baritone Andrew Cummings.

The concert, which starts at 7:30 pm on October 5, will be preceded on Saturday, September 30, also at 7:30 pm, by a screening of a widely hailed, 90-minute documentary, Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven's Final Symphony, which explores the global impact of Beethoven's last symphony. Check out the trailer below!

Both the concert and documentary screening will be at the St. Jean Baptiste Church at 184 E. 76th St.

"People who have never attended a classical music concert have probably heard the Ninth's Ode to Joy," said Richard Owen, Camerata New York's music director. "However, the symphony's influence is pervasive throughout not only music, but cinema as well as history and culture. We hope that our performance at St. Jean Baptiste Church, in tandem with the documentary's screening, will help the public better appreciate the beauty, genius and extraordinary influence of this masterpiece. Now more than ever, the call to "Brotherhood", celebrated in Beethoven's setting of Schiller's poetry, is a necessity in our divisive society!"

"Students used Beethoven's 9th during the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989," said Kerry Candaele, the documentary's director. "Women living under military dictatorship in Chile sang the Ode to Joy outside of torture prisons. And the Japanese turned to the 9th for healing and repair after the Tsunami of 2011. Following the Ninth and Beethoven's final symphony are a counter to despair, when hope perseverance seem like our best options in dark times."

The price of admission for all concerts is a suggested donation of $25 per person to help support the St. Jean Baptiste Church's cultural programming and activities. The Film screening is By Donation (no suggested admission).

To ring in the New Year, Camerata will perform the second event in its concert series - The Holiday Dance Festival. The Festival will consist of three performances January 5 - 7, 2018, in the St. Jean Baptiste Church Theater featuring top young professionals and pre-professionals dancers in a variety of styles and musical presentations.

Later in the spring, on Thursday, June 8, 2018, at 7:30 pm, Camerata will stage its second Annual Opera Gala at the church, featuring operatic favorites performed by top international soloists. See enclosed excerpts (including La Boheme, Onegin, Pagliacci) from the recent opera gala below!

All tickets: $25; $20 Students/Seniors at Eventbrite.com, or CamerataNY.org, or by calling the Church Office (212.288.5082). Tickets are also available at the door before each of the performances. All proceeds donated to St. Jean Baptiste Church.

Camerata New York, which is resident orchestra of St. Jean Baptiste, promotes the finest young musicians. Under the baton of music director Richard Owen, Camerata has successfully performed in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, St. Paul's Chapel, Merkin Hall and St. Patrick's Cathedral, among others. Critics have hailed Camerata New York's "lustrous tone-quality" and "near-definitive" performances and they have been featured in the New York Times, Newsday, Huffington Post, Opera News and Forbes. With a current release on Albany Records, Camerata New York's acclaimed recordings have been aired on three continents including on New York's WQXR (classical radio station of The New York Times), WMNR and SiriusXM.

Conductor Richard Owen combines a career as a conductor, pianist and organist. Owen is currently music director of Camerata NY Orchestra, St. Jean Baptiste and principal conductor of Adelphi Orchestra. He was formerly on the conducting staff of the NY Philharmonic (cover conductor) as well as the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. This season, Mr. Owen conducts Nutcracker with the Donetsk State Ballet, Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) with the Adelphi Orchestra and Beethoven's Ninth with the St. Jean Festival Chorus and Camerata NY. In prior seasons, Mr. Owen conducted the Little Opera Theater of New York, Rioult Dance, the Center for Contemporary Opera and Carmina Burana with the Montreal Symphony, conducting alongside Kent Nagano. Owen has conducted symphony orchestras in Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Rzeszow, Jacksonville, Monterrey, Belgrade as well as the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Europa Symphony, the Silesian Philharmonic, the Baltic Opera and the Pacific Symphony. Owen is married to a singer/cellist and they have three sons, all of whom are musical. For more information, visit, RichardOwenJr.com.