Cecilia Chorus of New York to Perform Rex Isenberg's 'Messiahs False and True,' 4/6

The Cecilia Chorus of New York, Mark Shapiro, Music Director will present Rex Isenberg's Messiahs: False and True, for chorus, narrator, organ, and bass drum on Sunday, March 6 - 3:00 PM at Church of the Holy Trinity, 316 E. 88th Street (between First and Second Avenues) in New York, NY.

Guest artists will be the Tony Award-winning actor John Glover; the vocal ensemble Choral Chameleon (Vince Peterson, Artistic Director), winner of the 2015 ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming; and the organist James Kennerley.

The composer writes, "In times of crisis, people naturally seek out charismatic individuals within their communities and elevate them to prominence in the hopes that they will lead them out of darkness...Messiahs: False and True...examines this particular cultural phenomenon by tracing the trajectory of such a leader. The libretto combines texts in English of various authors (Isaiah, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Jim Jones, Sabbatai Zevi, Soren Kierkegaard, and others), recited by a narrator, describing or spoken by messianic figures and charismatic leaders in history. These texts are juxtaposed with passages from the Old and New Testaments, sung in Latin by the choir, which follow the events of the story. Much of the biblical text is borrowed from Handel's Messiah, but presented in the Latin Vulgate translation. Only the very last chorus is in English - a poem included in the prologue to Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance." More about the music and the composer at http://rexisenberg.com/.

Choral Chameleon (http://www.choralchameleon.com/) will also perform The Story of Jumping Mouse by Liz Hanna and Alex Stein's As I Grew Older. The Hanna piece was commissioned in two parts for the group's 'Storytime' season to present audiences with a 'musical cliffhanger.' This will be the Premiere of the complete work. Alex Stein writes, "Langston Hughes's As I Grew Older is, of course, about a young black man's realization of his identity and his de facto place in society. Being white, I have never had this experience. But still, this poem resonates with me in a profound way because it is such a clear expression of the universal feeling of separateness that people develop as they grow into adulthood, and of their resulting longing to be made whole, to be healed."

Tickets for the March 6 concert are $25, $30 at the door, and can be purchased online at http://www.ceciliachorusny.org/tickets/ or by calling 646-638-2535.

For more information about this concert, visit http://www.ceciliachorusny.org/ or call 646-638-2535.

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