Musica Viva NY Performs BECAUSE: A Choral Concert Featuring Works by Beethoven, Bach, Fauré, Gounod, and The Beatles, March 3

New York City's leading chamber choir, Musica Viva NY, presents a one-night only concert on Sunday, March 3, 2024, 5:00 p.m., at Manhattan's All Souls. Performed by 30+ singers, conductor and pianist Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez and organist Trent Johnson, the beautifully interwoven program centers on adaptation—works that repurposed harmonies and melodies by composers of the past. 

In addition to the original and reinvented versions of songs by Bach, Beethoven, Fauré, and Gounod, Musica Viva NY presents the commissioned world premiere of LOVE TAKES, a song inspired by “Because” by The Beatles, written by today's leading Black choral composer Trevor Weston.

”Re-imagining, reconstructing, or repurposing pieces of music has been a pretty common practice amongst a good number of composers from the past and the present,” explains Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, Conductor/Artistic Director of Musica Viva NY. “On the Abbey Road album, The Beatles decided to include a song, ‘Because,' that John Lennon wrote after listening to Yoko Ono play the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. This idea of finding inspiration on a piece of music and re-imagining it provoked me to put together this particular program.”

Musica Viva NY shares several of these refurbished works starting with “Kyrie” by German composer Gottlob Benedict Bierey who superimposed vocal lines onto the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The French composer Charles Gounod superimposed a beautiful vocal line onto J. S. Bach's Prelude in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier to compose his Ave Maria. Fauré superimposed vocal lines onto his own piano piece, “Pavane,” and created a new version of this most beloved piece. In addition to the original and reinvented versions of these pieces, the program also includes Faure's most famous composition, his Requiem Op. 48, as well as movements from a little-known piece by Gounod, his Requiem in C.

Lastly, the world premiere Love Takes is a musical response to the love song “Because” by Trevor Weston (b.1967). According to the composer, “John Lennon used portions of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata to create his song. I used harmonies from two works about love, ‘Tristan and Isolde' and ‘Orfeo'. In each case I use a famous chord associated with the older works to complement my music.” Dr. Weston is currently a Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, and an instructor for the Music Advancement Program and Pre-College at The Juilliard School. The Boston Globe described Weston's choral music as having a “knack for piquant harmonies, evocative textures, and effective vocal writing.”

Musica Viva NY is a chamber choir of 30+ professionals and highly skilled volunteers. Since its founding in 1977, Musica Viva NY has been based in Manhattan's historic All Souls Church. Under the baton of Artistic Director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, its mission is to bring world-class music to a widening community through its annual concert series, community engagement programs, and an ambitious artistic vision.  Musica Viva NY's imaginative programming offers joy, solace and renewal in a complex world. Presenting a broad repertoire of new compositions and classic masterworks, Musica Viva NY emphasizes artistic excellence and transformative interpretations to ennoble the human spirit. Musica Viva NY regularly commissions and premieres new American music and is committed to performing the work of living American composers, women composers and composers of color, including works that are socially conscious and address social, racial or environmental issues. Since 2014, Musica Viva NY has commissioned and performed works by Bora Yoon, Seymour Bernstein, Elena Ruehr, Joseph Turrin, Alexandra T Bryant, Gilda Lyons, Richard Einhorn, Steve Reich, Frank Ticheli, Morten Lauridsen, Florence Price, Frank Ferko, Lori Laitman, Trent Johnson, George Walker, Joel Thompson, Missy Mazzoli, Randall Thompson, Jesse Montgomery, and Trevor Weston among others.