New Amsterdam Singers Launches 51st Season With Psalms And Celebrations

New Amsterdam Singers (NAS), led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, launches its 2018-19 season with a program of little-known psalm settings, most written for double chorus, by composers from different centuries. They include Bach, Schein, Schütz, Wesley, Viadana, and Vaughan Williams. The concerts will take place

Friday, December 7, 2018, at 8:00 p.m., at Broadway Presbyterian Church, Broadway at 114th St., and Sunday, December 9, at 5:00 P.M., at Advent Lutheran Church, Broadway at 93rd Street.

"Jauchzet dem Herrn" on Psalm 100 was long thought to be the work of Telemann, but has recently been authenticated as the work of J.S. Bach (1685-1750), who made substantial changes on an original by Telemann for one movement and who used portions of his own Cantata, "Gottlob, nun geht das Jahr zuende," for a second movement. The first part is an exuberant, tuneful masterpiece for double chorus, the second, a more contemplative work for single chorus using a chorale melody.

"In exitu Israel" is an intricately composed, virtuosic work on Psalm 114 for double chorus by Samuel Wesley (1766-1837), sometimes called "The English Mozart." Other double chorus works are "An den Wassern zu Babel" on Psalm 137 by Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) and "O Praise the Lord of Heaven" on Psalm 148 by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).

The chorus will also sing shorter works by Lodovico Viadana (1560-1627), Tomás Luis Victoria (1548-1611), Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630), Pavel Chesnokoff (1877-1944), Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), and Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). The most recent compositions are by contemporary Americans Steven Sametz, with his "Noel" on a medieval poem for men's voices, and classical and stage composer Doug Brandt, with "Remembering That It Happened Once" on a poem by Wendell Berry.

Music Director Clara Longstreth

In 1968 Clara Longstreth became conductor of what was then called the Master Institute Chorus. When the Master Institute dissolved in 1971, the singers regrouped as the New Amsterdam Singers, with Ms. Longstreth at the helm, where she remains today. From 1972-78, NAS was associated with the Bloomingdale House of Music; it became fully independent in 1978 under the management of its own elected Board of Directors. Over these five decades, Ms. Longstreth's tenure and programming instincts with NAS have been acknowledged by audiences and the press alike.

"Clara Longstreth, the longtime music director of the estimable New Amsterdam Singers, has a gift for devising adventurous programs with interesting juxtapositions," wrote Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times. Allan Kozinn, writing in the same publication, noted: "When a director takes up the challenge of building a cohesive program around a broad theme, we are reminded that programming can be an art."

Clara Longstreth has also served on the faculty of Rutgers University, where she conducted the Voorhees Choir of Douglass College. A student of conductor G. Wallace Woodworth at Harvard University, Ms. Longstreth trained for her master's degree at The Juilliard School under Richard Westenburg. Further study included work with Amy Kaiser and Semyon Bychkov at the Mannes College of Music, and with Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival. She has guest-conducted the Limón Dance Company in performances with NAS and the Riverside Choir, and with NAS and the Mannes College Orchestra in the folk opera, "Down in the Valley" during a Symphony Space "Wall to Wall Kurt Weill" program. In 2009 she received an Alumnae Recognition Award from Radcliffe College for her founding and longtime direction of New Amsterdam Singers.

New Amsterdam Singers

New Amsterdam Singers, which celebrated its 50th anniversary during the 201718 season, has been hailed as an "outstanding avocational choir" by The New Yorker, and is known for the breadth and variety of its repertoire. The ensemble specializes in a cappella and double chorus works, presenting music from the 16th century to contemporary pieces, including many it has commissioned.

Over the course of its five-decade history, the chorus of 70-plus singers has performed numerous world, American, and New York premieres. This programming reflects Ms. Longstreth's desire to focus efforts on lesser-known works by pre-eminent composers and on new works by living composers. Among them have been Matthew Harris, Paul Alan Levi, Ronald Perera, Ben Moore, Elizabeth Lim, Katherine Hoover, Alla Borzova, Charles Fussell, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Richard Rodney Bennett, Petr Eben, Robert Paterson, Abbie Betinis, Kirke Mechem, Steven Stucky, Luna Pearl Woolf, Ruth Watson Henderson, and Daniel Pinkham.

New Amsterdam Singers has performed with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein; American Russian Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; at Tanglewood's Ozawa 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 Limón Dance Company in Kodály's Missa Brevis. On March 13, 2016, NAS presented Golgotha, a 90-minute oratorio for chorus, orchestra, organ, and soloists by the Swiss composer Frank Martin in its first performance since 1952, as part of the Trinity Wall Street Concert Series. In 2013 the singers performed in South Africa, in 2015, in Greece, and in 2017, Iceland.

For further information, call (914) 712-8708 or go online to www.nasingers.org. Tickets are available at the door for $30. Tickets are also available in advance online for $25 (general admission), and $20 (students); by phone at the above number; or by mail (New Amsterdam Singers, P.O. Box 373, Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025).