New Amsterdam Singers Celebrate Britten December 13 and 15

The New Amsterdam Singers, led by music director Clara Longstreth, will open its 46th season with a celebration of the 100th birthday of Benjamin Britten. The chorus will perform five works by the distinguished British composer (1913-1976) as well as one written as a companion piece to his A Ceremony of Carols by American composer Conrad Susa. The concerts will take place at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 122 East 88th Street (at Lexington Avenue) on Friday, December 13 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, December 15 at 4:00 pm. The Britten pieces range from the popular A Ceremony of Carols for treble voices and harp to less frequently performed works. A.M.D.G. (Ad majorem Dei gloriam) was written in 1939 when Britten first came to the United States. The outbreak of war prevented its initial performance, and the composer withdrew it; the first public performance came in 1984. The New Amsterdam Singers' Chamber Chorus will sing four of the seven movements, all on texts by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Also to be performed are two other unusual Britten works: Shepherd's Carol on a fanciful text by W. H. Auden, and A Wealden Trio (Christmas Song of the Women) on a poem by Ford Madox Ford.

The program will also include A Hymn to the Virgin, an early work from 1934 which was sung at his funeral. Conrad Susa's Carols and Lullabies, subtitled Christmas in the Southwest, uses Spanish and Catalan carols. He imagines a private party for the new baby, and chose guitar, marimba, vibraphone, and harp as accompanying instruments. The work was commissioned by the Plymouth Music Series in Minnesota under Philip Brunelle. The program will also include three works for men's voices: Darius Milhaud's Psaume 121, Franz Biebl's Ave Maria, and John Jacob Niles's I Wonder As I Wander. Conrad Susa has composed three operas and more than 100 scores for theater, documentary films, and television. He is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Carols and Lullabies was written in 1992, and has since received numerous performances throughout the U.S.A.

New Amsterdam Singers
The New Amsterdam Singers (NAS) was founded in 1968 by Clara Longstreth. A recent issue of The New Yorker called Ms. Longstreth "one of the more imaginative choral programmers around" and the New Amsterdam Singers "a superb amateur group." The New York Times described the chorus's June 2012 concert as "varied and beautifully performed a cappella program." NAS has performed with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein; American Russian Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and at Tanglewood's Osawa Hall under Leon Botstein; Concordia Orchestra and Anonymous Four in Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light with Marin Alsop at Avery Fisher Hall; and with the Limon Dance Company in Kodály's Missa Brevis. In 2010 the chorus sang concerts in Cuba and at a Holiday Open House at the White House. Last summer NAS toured South Africa. For further information call (212)568-5948 or go online to www.nasingers.org. Tickets are available at the door for $25, $15 for seniors and $10 for students. Tickets are also available online in advance at www.nasingers.org, by phone (212-568-5948, or by mail (New Amsterdam Singers, P. O. Box 373, Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025). New Amsterdam Singers A Ceremony of Britten: Carols, Hymns, and Lullabies Friday, December 13, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 4:00 p.m. Immanuel Lutheran Church, 122 East 88th Street (at Lexington Avenue)