New Amsterdam Singers Founder And Music Director Clara Longstreth To Retire After 57 Seasons

New Amsterdam Singers has announced the retirement of Music Director Clara Longstreth — who founded the chorus in 1968 and has led the group for 57 seasons — at the end of the current concert season. Ben Arendsen will succeed Longstreth, effective with the 2025-2026 season, becoming only the second conductor to hold that post in the history of the chorus.

During her nearly six decades as music director, Longstreth has commissioned 16 new choral works, presented another 92 world, American, and New York premieres, led the chorus in 17 overseas tours, developed a reputation for innovative programming, and established New Amsterdam Singers as one of the preeminent avocational choruses in New York City.

As former New York Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini wrote, “This impressive ensemble has won a loyal following for inventive programs, devised by Clara Longstreth, the group's longtime conductor, that combine new and old music and unusual works in fresh ways.”

Arendsen is an Associate Professor and Director of Choral Activities at Nassau Community College and has served as music director of the Great Neck Choral Society, the Forest Hills Choir, and the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company of Long Island. He has degrees in music education and conducting from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, City University of New York, where he studied with Maurice Peress.

Upon Longstreth's retirement at the end of 2024-2025 season, Arendsen will be taking the helm of a chorus long known for the breadth of its repertoire and its championing of new works. Specializing in a cappella and double-chorus pieces, the chorus sings music ranging from the 16th to 21st centuries.

“I have tried to balance New Amsterdam Singers' repertoire between the beloved and familiar and the brand new,” Longstreth said. “I wanted the chorus to sing music that was challenging but manageable, stretching the idea of what is beautiful with a variety of musical styles and texts. It has been especially rewarding to work with composers we have commissioned.”

The composers New Amsterdam Singers has commissioned include Dale Trumbore, Paul Alan Levi, Ronald Perera, Ben Moore, Robert Paterson, and Lisa Bielawa. In March 2024, Longstreth led the chorus, soloists, and members of The Harlem Chamber Players in the world premiere of Michael Dellaira's chamber opera Arctic Explorations, a joint commission with Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre. This coming March, Longstreth will conduct the world premiere of the chorus's most recent commission, Philip Lasser's La Signification des Lettres. 

In addition to commissions, Longstreth has introduced New York audiences to emerging composers and seldom-heard works, having presented premieres by Matthew Harris, Abbie Betinis, Steven Stucky, Steven Sametz, Mark Kilstofte, and Adolphus Hailstork, among many others. In 2016 New Amsterdam Singers performed Frank Martin's oratorio Golgotha with orchestra and soloists as guests of Trinity Church Wall Street, the first time the work had been heard in New York City in more than 60 years. In 2000 Longstreth guest conducted singers from the chorus and the Mannes College Orchestra in a semi-staged performance of the folk opera Down in the Valley at Wall-to-Wall Kurt Weill at Symphony Space.

Under Longstreth's leadership, New Amsterdam Singers released two commercial CDs of American choral music, including American Journey, which Elliott Hurwitt of Fanfare Magazine called one of his top five CDs of 1991.

“I am thrilled and honored to have been selected to lead New Amsterdam Singers and am deeply humbled to be following in such illustrious footsteps as Clara's,” Arendsen said. “It's an incredible and inspiring legacy to inherit, and I am energized to be given this opportunity to continue New Amsterdam Singers' work in the choral community." 

On hearing the news of Arendsen's selection, Longstreth said, “Bravo! I think Ben is a great fit for New Amsterdam Singers and its skilled, dedicated singers. I am enormously grateful for the thorough process that led to Ben's selection, and I am very pleased with the outcome.”

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