NYCS Joins OONY for Fall Gala Concert, 10/25

The New York Choral Society(NYCS) will join the Opera Orchestra of New York (OONY) for its Fall Gala Concert at Carnegie Hall. Under the baton of the orchestra's new music director Alberto Veronesi, the concert features a star-studded double bill of Massenet's La Navarraise and Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. The evening will feature accomplished tenor Roberto Alagna, distinguished soprano Maria Guleghina, and celebrated mezzo-sopranos El?na Garan?a and Mignon Dunn.

New York Choral Society (NYCS), founded in 1958, has become known by audiences and critics for the quality of its performances and the diversity of its repertoire, which encompasses well-known choral masterworks as well as many compositions rarely heard in concert halls. The NYCS has presented eleven world premieres and has commissioned works by Paul Alan Levi, Morton Gould, Stephen Paulus, and Robert De Cormier.

John Daly Goodwin , Music Director of the New York Choral Society, has built on the ensemble's tradition of excellence over the past 23 seasons to make it the chorus of choice for American Ballet Theatre, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, the September Concert Foundation, and the Shanghai Symphony Broadcasting Orchestra. Under his direction, the chorus has performed in China, the Czech Republic, Israel, Austria, France, Italy, and Greece. His performances of such works as Mahler's 8th Symphony, Beethoven's Missa solemnis, and the Requiems of Verdi, Mozart, and Brahms have achieved much critical acclaim. He has conducted more than 90 concerts around New York City, including 40 in Carnegie Hall and 7 at Lincoln Center, and has prepared choruses for Leonard Bernstein, Dennis Russell Davies, Asher Fisch, Yong Yan Hu, Yehudi Menuhin, Eve Queler, Julius Rudel, Gerard Schwarz, Leonard Slatkin, and Robert Spano and for 17 telecasts.

Goodwin serves on the music faculty at New York University, where he teaches and conducts the Choral Arts Society. His strong personal commitment to music education has led him to do extensive volunteer work with aspiring young musicians. Through Young Audiences, Artsgenesis, and the New York Choral Society's Mini Maestros program, he has brought the gift of music to thousands of children in New York City public schools.

The Opera Orchestra of New York is noted for important discoveries of repertoire and singers, each performance at by The Opera Orchestra of New York is judged a "must attend" event for serious operagoers from around the globe. Year after year, the stars whom Queler has discovered and brought up through the ranks come back to collaborate in new ventures. The Opera Orchestra of New York has made a powerful and influential impact in the opera world, with sold-out concerts featuring casts of singers carefully matched to the repertory, from artists of international stature (such as Placido Domingo, Dolora Zajick, Nicolai Gedda, Montserrat Caballé, Aprile Millo and Alfredo Kraus) to superlative young singers just launching their careers. Most importantly, The Opera Orchestra of New York's pioneering efforts have led national opera companies to add works that received their first major modern hearing at The Opera Orchestra of New York to their permanent repertoires. These include The Metropolitan, Chicago Lyric, San Francisco, and Houston Grand Operas; repertoire includes Verdi's I lombardi, Donizetti's La Favorita, Zandonai's Francesca da, Dvo?ák's Rusalka, and Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina.

Among the orchestra's numerous U.S. premieres are Puccini's Edgar with Carlo Bergonzi and Renata Scotto; Boito's Nerone with James Morris and Pablo Elvira; and Smetana's Libuse with Gabriela Benacková and Paul Plishka. A most notable performance was the New York premiere of Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans, featuring Dolora Zajick and Jorma Hynninen, a performance that also marked the American premiere of the Russian language version.

The 2009-10 season marks the launch of Opera Orchestra's "Rising Stars," a series of intimate, informal dinner-hour solo recitals and chats with selected young artists. Rising Stars is hosted by Metropolitan Opera commentator Ira Siff and features Maestro Queler at the piano.