MasterVoices Opens Its Season With A JOYFUL NOISE Next Month

MasterVoices begins its 2021-22 season on Monday, December 6 at Carnegie Hall with A Joyful Noise, an occasion to celebrate a return to performing before an audience after a two-year absence, featuring music to mark the holiday season as well as the perseverance of the human spirit after a long hiatus. Joining in this first concert of MasterVoices' 80th anniversary season are rising Canadian soprano Mikaela Bennett, the Northwell Health Nurse Choir and 10-time Grammy Award winning a capella group, Take 6. MasterVoices will provide free tickets to a few hundred essential and frontline workers to this concert to thank them for their personal sacrifices during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Musical selections, sacred and secular, will include works by Randall Thompson and Adam Guettel that MasterVoices performed virtually last season and will sing together in person for the first time. Take 6, heard last season with MasterVoices in the online premiere of Adam Guettel's song cycle, Myths and Hymns, perform their unique arrangements both on their own and with MasterVoices joining, including If We Ever Needed the Lord Before (We Sure Do Need Him Now) by Thomas A. Dorsey, "the father of gospel music." A pillar of the program is Bernstein's Chichester Psalms which uses the text "A Joyful Noise," from the opening of Psalm 100. It features Mikaela Bennett, who sang the role of Mary Wintergreen in MasterVoices' 2019 concert production of Gershwin's Let 'Em Eat Cake as well as joining MasterVoices in a performance of Handel's Israel in Egypt in 2018. The evening ends on a majestic note with the traditional carol, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing with the soloists joining forces with the full ensemble.

The program also features the Northwell Health Nurse Choir, which began its journey in 2020 when nurses from different Northwell hospitals in New York gathered virtually to support the Nurse Heroes initiative. In June 2021, the Choir appeared on America's Got Talent and its captivating performance resulted in a Top 10 spot in the TV show's season finale.

Tickets, starting at $30, may be purchased online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800 or in person at Carnegie Hall's box office at 57th and Seventh Avenue. Ticket holders need to comply with the venue's health and safety requirements, which can be found here.