NY Premiere Of Multimedia Version Of Handel's ISRAEL IN EGYPT Comes to Carnegie Hall

MasterVoices and its 150 choristers opens its 77th season on Wednesday, November 28 at 8 pm at Carnegie Hall when the ensemble's Artistic Director Ted Sperling leads the New York premiere of a multi-media version of Handel's Israel in Egypt. The timely oratorio of exile and displacement is reflecting the biblical account of the heroic flight of Israelites enslaved in Pharaonic Egypt and their crossing the Red Sea.

Syrian Armenian visual artist Kevork Mourad will create a combination of pre-composed film and in-the-moment paintings that bring a personal perspective to the work's universal theme of displacement and the entrenched human instinct to return home, and that will be projected onto the walls of the concert hall. The evening will feature sopranos Mikaela Bennett and Jessica Niles, countertenor John Holiday, baritone Gregory Feldmann and bass-baritone Erik Van Heyningen, rising star tenor Andrew Stenson, as well as the period instrument ensemble New York Baroque Incorporated.

Kevork Mourad stated, "This story is very familiar to me because of my Armenian background. My ancestors were forced to leave their homes 100 years ago and were welcomed by Syrians. And now this has happened to the Syrians: almost half the population has been forced to leave their homes. The story of the Exodus is mirrored in the refugee crisis in the country of my birth, Syria, and many other countries around the world, where people are forced out of their homes due to violence and economic hardship. History is repeating itself, and the idea of finding a new home, the right to safety, is something that resonates with me, the descendant of refugees."

Tickets: Priced from $30 to $130. Tickets may be purchased online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or in person at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th and Seventh Avenue.

This production was commissioned by Los Angeles Master Chorale, which premiered it in February 2018 at Walt Disney Hall. About MasterVoices MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale) was founded in 1941 by the legendary American choral conductor Robert Shaw and is currently under the artistic direction of Ted Sperling. For 77 years, the organization has presented varied programming, with emphasis in three areas: choral masterpieces, operas in concert, and musical theater. Choral classics performed by MasterVoices have included Bach's St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, Brahms' Requiem, Britten's War Requiem, Fauré's Requiem, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's The Creation, Mozart's Requiem, Orff's Carmina Burana, and Verdi's Requiem.

The company has presented several important premieres, including the U.S. premieres of Dvo?ák's Dmitri and Handel's Jupiter in Argos, and the NY premieres of Respighi's La Fiamma, Glass's The Juniper Tree, and Gordon's The Grapes of Wrath. Other rarely heard operas presented in concert have included Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda, Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans, Rossini's Moïse et Pharaon, and Joplin's Treemonisha. Throughout its history, MasterVoices has specialized in presenting rarely heard works of musical theater and standard works with a fresh approach, including Bernstein's A White House Cantata, Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Weill's The Firebrand of Florence, Knickerbocker Holiday, and the world premiere of a concert version of The Road of Promise.

MasterVoices has performed in prominent NYC concert halls, including Carnegie Hall, New York City Center, and Geffen Hall, under the batons of many esteemed conductors, including Serge Koussevitzky, Arturo Toscanini, Leonard Bernstein, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, and Alan Gilbert. The company has also attracted many world-class soloists, including Bryn Terfel, René Pape, Stephanie Blythe, Deborah Voigt, Eric Owens, Thomas Hampson, Kelli O'Hara, Paulo Szot and Victoria Clark. Because of its reputation of excellence, MasterVoices has been hired to perform with many top orchestras over the years, including the NBC Symphony, The New York Philharmonic and The Israel Philharmonic, and has been invited to appear abroad, in Israel and at the Verbier and Salzburg Festivals.

In August 2015, the organization transitioned from The Collegiate Chorale to MasterVoices, a name that better represents the current mission of the company as a performing arts organization that celebrates storytelling through the masterful voices of its chorus and world-class soloists, and the creative voices of composers, librettists, designers and directors. For more information, visit mastervoices.org.

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