Oratorio Society of New York Brings Britten's WAR REQUIEM to Carnegie Hall Tonight

To conclude its 140th anniversary season, the Oratorio Society of New York, the city's standard for grand choral performance, presents Benjamin Britten's monumental 1962 work War Requiem at Carnegie Hall tonight, April 22, 2013, at 8:00 PM.

This marks OSNY Music Director Kent Tritle's first time leading War Requiem, which is written for full chorus with orchestra and soprano soloist, semichorus, chamber orchestra with tenor and baritone soloists, and a children's choir with organ. OSNY Associate Conductor David Rosenmeyer leads the chamber orchestra. Joining the Oratorio Society for this performance are soprano Emalie Savoy, tenor John Matthew Myers, baritone Jesse Blumberg; and the Choristers of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine conducted by Malcolm Merriweather.

This year marks the centennial of English composer Benjamin Britten's birth. War Requiem, considered by some to be his greatest work, is a searing antiwar statement that intersperses the Latin Requiem text with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, a World War I soldier who was killed in action a week before the Armistice. It was written for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed during a devastating German bombing raid on the city in November 1940, now considered one of the worst on any single city durng the war.

Kent Tritle says of War Requiem, "One of the great beauties of the piece is the essential integrity and ingenuity of the text. The chorus represents the masses of the world in mourning; the soprano soloist represents the heavenly intercession, and the children's choir represents the voice of divine innocence. The tenor and bass soloists represent the antagonists, in this case of the World Wars, but of course in a larger sense of all international conflicts, and their discovery of their one-ness in light of the common denominator of death. All this is contained within a musical context that rises from the ashes and returns to the skies."

When Tritle came to New York, he sought every opportunity to hear it: "I will never forget standing at the Amsterdam Avenue end of the Cathedral of St John the Divine [where Tritle is now Director of Cathedral Music and Organist], having just made it in to join the thousands gathered to hear the New York Philharmonic in their performance of this work in the early 1990s. Little did I know I would later play with the New York Philharmonic in performances under Kurt Masur [which have been released on the Philharmonic label]-and I watched Wolfgang Sawallisch perform War Requiem with the Westminster Choir and Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Now having the opportunity to draw together a performance of this masterpiece is the privilege of a lifetime." Watch a video on the OSNY site of Kent Tritle talking about War Requiem.

The concert is the culmination of the 140th anniversary season of the Oratorio Society of New York, which in December offered its annual performance of Handel's Messiah and on March 5 performed the New York premiere of Paul Moravec's oratorio The Blizzard Voices, in what the Times called, "an impassioned performance." On April 13 the OSNY hosts its annual Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition, the only major vocal competition devoted to solo oratorio singing. All of the OSNY's performances take place at Carnegie Hall, where the chorus has been performing since the hall opened in 1891.

Kent Tritle, one of America's leading choral conductors, is in his eighth season as Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York. 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. The 2012-13 season also marks his sixth season as Music Director of Musica Sacra, the longest continuously performing professional chorus in New York. In addition, Tritle is Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music and is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School. He is the host of the weekly radio show "The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle," an hour-long radio program on New York's Classical 105.9 WQXR and www.wqxr.org and is devoted to the vibrant genre of choral music and the breadth of activity in the choral community. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also the organist of the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra. www.kenttritle.com

David Rosenmeyer, OSNY Associate Conductor, made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2007 leading the Society in Stravinsky's Mass. Other performances with the Society include leading works by Copland and Ives at its March 2013 "American Voices" concert. Rosenmeyer is music director of the 100-voice Fairfield County Chorale and the women's chamber vocal ensemble Amuse. He has conducted renowned orchestras in Israel and South America, as well as operas in New York and Mexico. Rosenmeyer is music director of the Choral Arts Society and the University Singers at New York University, a member of the conducting staff of Mannes College, The New School for Music, and conductor and vocal coach with the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv. He has also been involved with Carnegie Hall's educational programs including, in March 2013, a performance of Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos and is the principal lecturer in the Oratorio Society's Education program. www.davidrosenmeyer.com

Soprano Emalie Savoy made her Metropolitan Opera debut during the 2011-12 season as Kristina in Leoš Janá?ek's The Makropulos Case and sang the title role in Gluck's Armide in a joint Metropolitan Opera-Juilliard production about which Anthony Tommasini said in The New York Times, "the gifted soprano Emalie Savoy sang with plush sound, fiery temperament and cool elegance." MS. Savoy recently made her New York Philharmonic debut in Janá?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen, conducted by Alan Gilbert. Other recent highlights include the title role in Satie's Socrate with James Levine conducting the MET Chamber Ensemble in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, and performances in Mendelssohn's Elijah and Paulus, led by Kent Tritle with the Oratorio Society of New York. www.savoymusic.net

Tenor John Matthew Myers has garnered acclaim for giving "insightful and beautifully nuanced performances" by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and being an "artist to watch" by Opera News. Mr. Myers' engagements for the 2012-13 season include performances in the role of Periodista in the U.S. premiere of Gabriela Ortiz's Camelia la Tejana-Unicamente La Verdad with the Long Beach Opera as well as a double bill of Tell-Tale Heart by Stewart Copeland and Van Gogh by Michael Gordon, also with the Long Beach Opera. Past season highlights include his Carnegie Hall debut as Ophide in Rossini's Moïse et Pharaon with Collegiate Chorale, as well as Mozart's Il Sogno di Scipione with the Gotham Chamber Opera. www.johnmatthewmyers.com

Some of baritone Jesse Blumberg's recent engagements include Niobe, Regina di Tebe at the Boston Early Music Festival, Bernstein's Mass at London's Royal Festival Hall, and performances with the New York Festival of Song. Mr. Blumberg has toured with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Waverly Consort and has given recitals for the Marilyn Horne Foundation. An active performer of new music, he has premiered important works by Lisa Bielawa, Tom Cipullo, Conrad Cummings, and Ricky Ian Gordon, and he works closely with several other renowned composers as a new member of the Mirror Visions Ensemble. www.jesseblumberg.com

The Choristers of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine is New York's longest continuously performing children's choir. It is drawn from the students attending the Cathedral School, founded in 1901 as a boarding school for boy choristers who sang at services at the Cathedral. The school is now a co-educational day school. The choir rehearses three times a week and sings from a wide and varied repertory at Cathedral services. Led by Kent Tritle, Director of Music, and Malcolm J. Merriweather, Choral Associate, the Cathedral Choristers also participate in the Cathedral's concert programs. Tours are another important part of their experience; this summer they will sing a week's residency at St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

"The Oratorio Society has held the line for choral grandeur," said The New York Times of the Society's performance of Handel's Messiah at Carnegie Hall in 2008. Since its founding in 1873, during which time many thousands of singers have passed through its membership, the OSNY, New York's own 200-voice avocational chorus, has become the city's standard for grand, joyous choral performance. Since 2005 the chorus has been led by Music Director Kent Tritle, called "New York City's foremost choral conductor" by Time Out New York. "The sheer energy of the society's sound had an enveloping fervor," wrote Allan Kozinn in The New York Times of a 2008 presentation of Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem; and of a 2005 performance of Messiah, Jeremy Eichler said in the Times, "this was . . . a vibrant and deeply human performance, made exciting by the sheer heft and depth of the chorus's sound."

The Oratorio Society has performed the world, U.S., or New York premieres of works as diverse as Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem (1877), Berlioz' Roméo et Juliette (1882), a full-concert production of Wagner's Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera House (1886), Tchaikovsky's a cappella Legend and Pater noster (1891) and Eugene Onegin (1908), the now-standard version of The Star Spangled Banner (1917; it became the national anthem in 1931), Bach's B-minor Mass (1927), Dvoràk's St. Ludmila (1993), Britten's The World of the Spirit (1998), Juraj Filas' Song of Solomon (2012), Paul Moravec's Blizzard Voices, as well as works by Handel, Liszt, Schütz, Schubert, Debussy, Elgar, and Saint Saëns, among others.

On its 100th anniversary the Oratorio Society received the Handel Medallion, New York City's highest cultural award, in recognition of these contributions. Its 1982 European debut marked the beginning of an acclaimed series of overseas concerts on four continents, most recently in Brazil in summer 2012. In 2003, the Society received the UNESCO Commemorative Medal and the Cocos Island World Natural Heritage Site Award. www.oratoriosocietyofny.org

Monday, April 22, 2013, at 8:00 PM
Carnegie Hall - Stern Auditorium, Perelman Stage

ORATORIO SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
Kent Tritle, Conductor
David Rosenmeyer, Chamber Orchestra Conductor
Emalie Savoy, Soprano
John Matthew Myers, Tenor
Jesse Blumberg, Baritone
Choristers of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
The Orchestra of the Society

BRITTEN War Requiem

Tickets: $22-$85
At the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 57th St. and 7th Ave.
By phone at CarnegieCharge, 212-247-7800
Online at www.carnegiehall.org