New Amsterdam Singers Presents BACH TO BETINIS, 12/12

The New Amsterdam Singers, led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will present "Bach to Betinis," a program featuring rarely-heard works for double chorus, at the chorus's first concerts of the season.  The works include Josef Rheinberger's seldom performed magnum opus Mass in E flat, written in 1878 for double chorus a cappella, and the beloved J. S. Bach motet Komm, Jesu, komm.  Familiar works of Poulenc (Hodie Christus natus est) and Verdi (Ave Maria) will also be performed, as well as three New York premieres.  The concerts will take place at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 122 East 88th Street at Lexington Avenue, on Friday, December 10 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, December 12 at 4 p.m.

The newer works receiving New York premieres are The Babe of Bethlehem by Minnesota composer Abbie Betinis, Christmas Rounds by North Carolina composer Mark Kilstofte, and a setting of a German carol Leise rieselt der Schnee  by Australian composer Clare Maclean.  New Yorker John Corigliano will be represented by his 1994 work, Amen.

Born in Lichtenstein, Rheinberger (1839-1901) was renowned as a composer of orchestra, chamber, and operatic works, and was a church musician throughout his life.  He was also a much sought-after teacher of composition.  Mass in E flat, called Cantus Missae, is in the style of 16th and 17th century polyphonic works, but the harmony is clearly of the 19th century.

New Amsterdam Singers
The New Amsterdam Singers 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 chorus has performed with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein; American Russian Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and 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.

For further information call 212-568-5948 or go online at www.nasingers.org.