The Cathedral of St. John the Divine to Present HEAVEN'S DOOR

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine's Great Music in a Great Space concert series will present Heaven's Door, a performance by the Cathedral Choir and Orchestra, on Tuesday, April 5 at 7:30pm at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street). The concert will be held in person and available to livestream.

The performance features soprano Nola Richardson, mezzo-soprano Tracy Cowart, tenor Andrew Fuchs, and bass-baritone Joseph Beutel. Spanning centuries and musical styles, the program includes Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto in D minor; Alissa Firsova's a cappella Stabat Mater; José Maurício Nuñes-Garcia's Mozart-inspired Requiem; and the New York premiere of the later orchestration for strings and timpani of Francis Poulenc's Litanies to the Black Virgin. Kent Tritle, Director, Cathedral Music, and Bryan Zaros, Choirmaster, conduct.

The performance will take place in person at the Cathedral. Live video of the concert, made possible by a generous grant from NYSCA, will also be available to stream on the Cathedral's website for 30 days. Students are eligible for one free ticket at the door with a valid ID. For tickets and more information, visit the Cathedral's website.

All visitors to the Cathedral are required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and wear a mask for entry. For more details and information on all the Cathedral's programs and services, visit stjohndivine.org.

PROGRAM

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-741)

Concerto in D minor

Alissa Firsova (b. 1986)

Stabat Mater

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Litanies to the Black Virgin

José Maurício Nuñes-Garcia (1767-1830)

Requiem

About the Artists

Kent Tritle is one of America's leading choral conductors. Called "the brightest star in New York's choral music world" by The New York Times, he is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City; Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York, the acclaimed 200-voice volunteer chorus; and Music Director of Musica Sacra, New York's longest continuously performing professional chorus. In addition, Kent is Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music and is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also the organist of the New York Philharmonic and on the organ faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.

Bryan Zaros is a young American conductor recognized for his "strong musical imagination" and "deep sense of musicality and communication." He is the Associate Choirmaster at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and made his conducting debut with the Cathedral Choirs at Westminster Abbey, London. A native New Yorker, Zaros began his professional musical training as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus and as a boy chorister at The Church of the Transfiguration, NYC. He is the Music Director of the Pro Arte Chorale, an ensemble with a 55-year legacy specializing in the performance of choral/orchestral masterworks and is a frequent guest lecturer at the Manhattan School of Music and at music conferences throughout the USA. He received a Bachelor of Music in Sacred Music from Westminster Choir College and a Master of Music in Conducting from the University of Michigan. He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Conducting at the Manhattan School of Music. Recent conducting engagements have included invitations with choirs and orchestras in England, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, Argentina, Greece, Slovenia, Ireland and Romania. Most notably he has conducted ensembles at Alice Tully Hall-Lincoln Center, the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., at American Choral Director's Association Conferences and various cathedrals in England including St. Paul's Cathedral-London, Canterbury Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. He is a recipient of several conducting awards including an American Prize award in Conducting. For more information about Bryan, visit www. bryanzaros.com.

"An imposing bass-baritone," as reviewed by Opera News, Joseph Beutel, is often praised for his "deep well-rounded tone," and overall richness of voice and versatility on stage. Making his

career across five continents, Beutel enjoys performing traditional operas and originating new roles in new operas on the cutting edge, along with many oratorios and other concert works. Some roles of note include originating the role of the "British Major" in Silent Night, Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell's Pulitzer Prize winning opera, and most recently originating the role of "Sir" in Mila, an opera commissioned by Asia Society Hong Kong most recently performed in New York and San Francisco. Beutel has performed with many prestigious companies across the

country and world, including, Santa Fe Opera, NYCO, NY Philharmonic, New York City Ballet,

English Concert, Seattle Opera, Minnesota Opera, and Sarasota Opera to name a few. Beutel also

enjoys performing musical theater with credits from Encores! at City Center in New York and

Live at Lincoln Center featured on PBS. Recordings include Grammy nominated Alexander

Kastalsky's Requiem, Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes, performed live on the 100th

anniversary of the Armistice to WWI in National Cathedral, Washington D.C. on the Naxos

label.

Tracy Cowart (mezzo-soprano) enjoys a wide range of vocal interests, from twelfth-century polyphony to avant-garde old-time music. Based in NYC, Tracy has been praised by The New York Times as "the real attraction" with a voice that is "light and lithe." Tracy has performed and recorded with ensembles including Apollo's Fire, La Donna Musicale, Chivalrous Crickets, Makaris, Musica Sacra, the Newberry Consort, Publick Musick, Rose of the Compass, and the Washington Bach Consort. As co-director of the baroque ensemble Labyrinth, she annually stages and performs in 17th-century pastiches that juxtapose florid virtuosity and ribald comedy for the Catskill Mountain Foundation. Tracy is also co-director of the medieval ensemble Alkemie, with whom she has developed a number of interactive concerts and appeared on series including Music Before 1800, the Five Boroughs Music Festival, Arizona Early Music, and Capitol Early Music. Her "Like a Woman" program that Alkemie debuted this past fall is one of only two concerts by U.S. ensembles to be featured on the European Early Music Network's 2022 Festival.

Tracy holds a D.M.A. in Historical Performance from Case Western Reserve University and an M.M. in Early Music from the Longy School of Music. She is on the faculty of the Amherst Early Music Festival and co-directs the University Collegium at Fordham, where she also teaches voice. When she is not performing, she is an enthusiastic forager and amateur mycologist. www.tracycowart.com

Tenor Andrew Fuchs's wide-ranging repertoire includes an abundance of early music, performing with such ensembles as Pegasus, ARTEK, TENET, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street where he was a frequent soloist on the "Bach at One" series, and most recently as a new member of the GRAMMY-nominated quartet New York Polyphony, whose extensive touring takes the acclaimed ensemble to major concert series and festivals around the world. He made his Kennedy Center debut in Monteverdi's Vespers with The Thirteen and his Lincoln Center debut in Bach's Magnificat with the American Classical Orchestra. Also passionate about contemporary music, he has premiered a number of works including the principal role of ME in Daniel Thomas Davis's opera Six. Twenty. Outrageous., song cycles by Alexander Goehr and Juliana Hall, and Zachary Wadsworth's oratorio Spire and Shadow. Other highlights include Reich's Three Tales and Daniel Variations with Ensemble Signal, Liebeslieder Waltzes with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge with the Momenta Quartet, and Bach's St. John Passion Evangelist at St. John the Divine. Andrew is an alumnus of the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar and the Tanglewood Music Center, and holds degrees from the University of Kansas and Stony Brook University.

Making her mark as an "especially impressive" (The New York Times) soprano, Australian/American Nola Richardson has won First Prize in all three major American competitions focused on the music of J.S. Bach (Bethlehem Bach, 2016; Audrey Rooney Bach, 2018; Grand Rapids Symphony Linn Maxwell Keller Award, 2019). These honors have catapulted her to the forefront of Baroque ensembles and orchestras around the country, where she has been praised for her "astonishing balance and accuracy," "crystalline diction," and "natural-sounding ease" (Washington Post). In recent seasons she has made debuts with the Seattle, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Colorado Symphonies (Handel Messiah); filmed arias with the Atlanta Symphony for a documentary about J. S. Bach; made appearances at the Lincoln Center with the American Classical Orchestra; and performed with a wide range of Baroque ensembles including the American Bach Soloists, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Musica Angelica, the Colorado Bach Ensemble, and Ars Lyrica Houston. Past operatic highlights include her debut at the Kennedy Center with Opera Lafayette (Fraarte in Handel's Radamisto) which drew praise for her "particularly appealing freshness and directness" (Washington Post), and a "standout" performance (Opera News) as the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte with the Clarion Music Society. Nola is also a devoted chamber musician and has performed, toured, and recorded with grammy nominated ensembles Seraphic Fire, Clarion, Musica Sacra, and Trinity Wall Street. Nola is an Athlone Artist and holds a DMA degree in Early Music Voice from Yale. www.NolaRichardson.com

About Great Music in a Great Space

Revived in 2011, Great Music in a Great Space reprises the legendary concert series first held at the Cathedral in the 1980s. Great Music in a Great Space presents choral, orchestral, and instrumental music, in the magnificent, deeply spiritual setting of the world's largest Gothic cathedral. The beloved holiday traditions of the Christmas Concert and New Year's Eve Concert for Peace are an integral part of our concert series. Joined by Rose of the Compass, Musica Sacra, and the Oratorio Society of New York, the Cathedral Choirs, Orchestra, and a remarkable artistic team of organists and soloists bring the beloved space of the Cathedral to life with this transcendent music.

About The Cathedral

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is the Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. It is chartered as a house of prayer for all people and a unifying center of intellectual light and leadership.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cathedral has responded to changing needs in the local community and across the city and state. People from many faiths and communities worship together in daily services held online and in person; the soup kitchen serves roughly 50,000 meals annually; social service outreach has an increasingly varied roster of programs to safely provide resources and aid to the hardest-hit New Yorkers; the distinguished Cathedral School prepares young students to be future leaders; Advancing the Community of Tomorrow, the

renowned preschool, afterschool and summer program, offers diverse educational and nurturing experiences; the outstanding Textile Conservation Lab preserves world treasures; concerts, exhibitions, performances and civic gatherings allow conversation, celebration, reflection and remembrance-such is the joyfully busy life of this beloved and venerated Cathedral.