Great Music at St. Bart's Announces 2017 Holiday Concerts

The December events presented by Great Music at St. Bart's are among New Yorkers' favorite holiday traditions: seasonal music in the beautiful spaces of St. Bartholomew's Church.

A Joyous Christmas Concert offers choral, orchestral, and organ music of the season along with a Christmas carol sing-in; Adoration of the Magi is an intimate visual and musical celebration of the holidays in the St. Bart's Chapel; and A Concert To Usher In the New Year, a holiday gift to the city, is a late evening organ concert by William Trafka, Director of Music and Organist of St. Bartholomew's Church, and post-concert toast, that is free to the public (details below).

Tickets may be purchased online at www.mmpaf.org, by phone by calling 212-378-0248, or in person at St. Bart's in Midtown Manhattan, 325 Park Avenue at 51st Street.

Great Music at St. Bart's, the concert series produced by the Mid-Manhattan Performing Arts Foundation (www.mmpaf.org), for the past seven years has presented music in St. Bartholomew's Church, a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of New York located in the heart of midtown Manhattan. The magnificent 1918 Romanesque-style church, a National Historic Landmark, features a portal designed by Stanford White and a grand Byzantine-style interior - and two of New York's unlikely but outstanding concert spaces. The 150-seat chapel is an intimate and acoustically brilliant space perfectly suited for contemporary chamber music, and the majestic 1,000-seat sanctuary - outfitted with comfortable chairs enabling flexible seating -boasts an Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ that is the largest in New York City and one of the finest examples of the American Classic Organ in the U.S.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017, at 7:30 pm in the Church

A JOYOUS CHRISTMAS CONCERT

St. Bartholomew's Choir, Boy and Girl Choristers, Chamber Orchestra

Jason Roberts, organist and conductor

William K. Trafka, conductor

A beloved New York holiday tradition, this concert combines the choral forces of St. Bart's, New York City's largest pipe organ, and a chamber orchestra for a concert of Christmas favorites. The Christmas portion of Handel's Messiah, Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on Christmas Carols and carol settings of Ešenvalds, Chilcott, Willcocks and others are performed in the candlelit splendor of St. Bartholomew's Church.

Tickets: $100 Angel Club Seating, $40, $25; students and seniors receive a $10 discount

Friday, December 15, 2017, at 7:30 pm in the Chapel

ADORATION OF THE MAGI

Jeff Morrissey, baritone

William K. Trafka, piano

Singer Jeff Morrissey and St. Bart's Music Director William Trafka present their popular Christmas program inspired by the elegant paintings found in the South Chapel of St. Bartholomew's. In 1919 Ethel Parsons Paullin and her husband Telford created the beautiful Adoration of the Magi and the 13 medallions surrounding it depicting subjects connected with the Nativity of Christ. This program brings the artwork to life, weaving passages from the Bible with Polish carols and ballads from the Southern Appalachian Mountains as well as works by Nin, Ramirez, Grainger, and Michael Head to present a visual and musical telling of the Christmas story.

Tickets: $25 general admission, $15 for students and seniors

Sunday, December 31, 2017, at 11:00 pm in the Church

A CONCERT TO USHER IN THE NEW YEAR

William K. Trafka, organ

In an annual St. Bart's tradition, William Trafka, Director of Music and Organist, performs works by Bach, Guilmant, and Mendelssohn on St. Bartholomew's grand Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ, one of New York's greatest musical treasures. Trafka's own transcription of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man will be played at the stroke of midnight.

A free Champagne toast will follow the concert.

Admission is free

Tickets are available through the Box Office at St. Bartholomew's Church, 325 Park Avenue, New York, NY, and are available by phone, 212-378-0248, and online at www.mmpaf.org.