New Amsterdam Singers to Present 'NORTHERN LIGHTS' at The Church of the Holy Trinity

The New Amsterdam Singers, (NAS), led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will present Northern Lights: Four Centuries of Spirited Music from Northern Europe, Friday, March 17, 2017, at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, March 19, 2017, at 4:00 p.m., at The Church of the Holy Trinity, 316 East 88th Street (between First and Second Avenues).

The chorus, which The New Yorker has called "a superb amateur group," offers this a cappella program focusing on lesser-known masterpieces from Norway, Iceland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, in addition to works by well-known composers such as Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Tchaikovsky.

Sacred works, many of them psalm settings, are represented by the German composer Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785); the Hungarian György Orbán (b.1947); the Icelandic Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson (b.1952); and the Russians Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. The program also includes rarely-heard works for both men's voices and women's voices. For men: Schumann's Die Lotosblume and Rastlose Liebe on poetry of Heine and Goethe, and Hugo Distler's Der Tambour by the poet, Mörike. For women: two songs by Bohuslav Martin? (1890-1959) from a set of Czech madrigals, and an Ave Maria by the Hungarian Jozsef Karai (1927-2013).

The Norwegian composer, Ola Gjeilo, whose work Northern Lights inspired the title for the program, was born in 1978 and now lives in New York City. His music has been played and recorded in more than 30 countries worldwide. His choral works have been performed by choirs such as the Kansas City Chorale, Vocal Essence, and St. Olaf College. He wrote Northern Lights on a trip to his homeland in 2007. The phenomenon of the aurora borealis, visible from northern Norway, greatly inspired this piece.

Clara Longstreth

Clara Longstreth has conducted the New Amsterdam Singers since its formation in 1968. She has 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 Westenberg. 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.

Ms. Longstreth has guest-conducted the Limón Dance Company in performance with NAS and the Riverside Choir. She has conducted NAS and the Mannes College Orchestra in the folk opera Down in the Valley during Symphony Space's "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. Of Ms. Longstreth's programs, Allan Kozinn wrote in The New York Times, "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."

New Amsterdam Singers

The New Amsterdam Singers, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary next season, is known for the breadth and variety of its repertoire. Specializing in a cappella and double chorus works, the ensemble sings music ranging from the 16th century to contemporary pieces, including many it has commissioned. Recent world premieres include works by Paul Alan Levi, Elizabeth Lim, and Ronald Perera. American and New York City premieres in the current decade have included works by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Matthew Harris, Steven Stucky, Kirke Mechem, Stephen Sametz, Kitty Brazelton, Clare Maclean, Alex Weiser, Sheena Phillips, and Judith Shatin. 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.

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 Limon Dance Company in Kodály's Missa Brevis. NAS's performances internationally, under Ms. Longstreth's direction, have included appearances at the Granada Festival in Spain; the International Choral Festival at Miedzyzdroje, Poland; the Festival of the Algarve in Portugal, and Les Chorégies d'Orange in France, among other venues. In 2013 the singers performed in South Africa, and in 2015, in Greece. NAS will tour Iceland in July 2017.

On Thursday, June 1, 2017, at 8:00 p.m., NAS will present Life Is But a Dream, featuring new American works inspired by poetry and folk melodies, with music by Dominick Argento, Colin Britt, Aaron Copland, Matthew Harris, Ben Moore, Robert Paterson, and others, at Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, 554 West End Avenue (at 87th Street),

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