The Cecilia Chorus Of New York Presents Handel's Messiah On December 8 At Carnegie Hall

The Cecilia Chorus of New York, Mark Shapiro, Music Director will present Handel's Messiah on Saturday, December 8 at 8:00 PM in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, 57th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan.

Soloists for this performance will be:

· Soprano Shakéd Bar, winner of the Fishbach Prize at the 2016 Handel Singing Competition in London ("a voice of exceptional liveliness and presence," The New York Times)

· Countertenor Nicholas Tamagna (Opéra Royal de Versailles) ("admirable suppleness and great expressiveness," Das Opernglas)

· Up and coming New York-based tenor Michael St. Peter ("emotionally and musically... profound," OperaWire)

· Bass William Guanbo Su, First Prize winner for the 2017 Gerda Lissner/Lieder competition ("a bass... both intimate and cavernous," Brooklyn Discovery)

Ms. Bar and Mr. St. Peter will be making their Carnegie Hall debuts. Tamagna and Su will be making return appearances with CCNY. For interviews with and bios of these four soloists, see the November 1 issue of the newsletter of The Cecilia Chorus of New York: www.ceciliachorusny.org/news.

The concert will be presented with orchestral accompaniment.

Tickets for the December 8 concert range from $25 to $85, and can be purchased online at http://ceciliachorusny.org/tickets, https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2018/12/08/The-Cecilia-Chorus-of-New-York-with-Orchestra-0800PM, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or visiting the box office at 57th St and Seventh Ave.

For more information about this concert, visit http://www.ceciliachorusny.org/ or call 646-638-2535. For MTA transportation information, visit http://tripplanner.mta.info/MyTrip/ui_web/customplanner/TripPlanner.aspx.

The Cecilia Chorus of New York is the 2015 winner of the ASCAP/Chorus America Alice Parker Award. New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs recently awarded them a generous grant to support several consecutive seasons. The chorus was founded in 1906 and has evolved into one of the finest avocational performing arts organizations in New York City, described as "reliably venturesome" (The New Yorker, 2017) and "admirable," (New York Times, 2017). Recent performance highlights have included the commission and premiere of Oedipus the King (2017) by the Brothers Balliett, featuring two-time Tony Award-winning actor Stephen Spinella, the commission and premiere of Tom Cipullo's Credo for a Secular City at Carnegie Hall in 2014, the New York Premiere of the Mass in N*E*R*D (1892) by Dame Ethel Smyth in 2013 as well as the Chorus's first-ever commission/premiere for Carnegie Hall, Divis Cetera by Raphael Fusco in 2012. The Chorus's 2016-17 season included three newly commissioned works. Their 2017-18 season included two U.S. premieres: Messe Romane, by Thierry Escaich, and The Prison (1930) by Dame Ethel Smyth. This season includes a newly commissioned work from The Brothers Balliett, Fifty Trillion Molecular Geniuses. Much more about CCNY at http://ceciliachorusny.org/.

Mark Shapiro was appointed the seventh Music Director of The Cecilia Chorus of New York in 2011. Music Director of The Prince Edward Island Symphony and Artistic Director of Cantori New York, he is one of a handful of artistic leaders in North America to have won a prestigious ASCAP Programming Award six times, achieving the unique distinction of winning such an award with three different ensembles. The New York Times has characterized his conducting as "insightful" and acknowledged its "virtuosity and assurance," and "uncommon polish." His artistic leadership was characterized by New Jersey's Star-Ledger as "erudite and far-reaching." His bio is at http://www.ceciliachorusny.org/music-director-mark-shapiro/.