The Cecilia Chorus of New York Presents Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at Carnegie Hall on 5/6

The Cecilia Chorus of New York, Mark Shapiro, Music Director will present Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, op. 123, Friday, May 6 at 8:00 PM in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, 57th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan.

Maestro Shapiro writes, "There can be no doubt that Beethoven intended Missa to be his quintessential spiritual tract, a distillation of all he believed. The sacred Mass text would again be pressed into service (after the out-of-town tryout that was the Mass in C) as a vehicle for a grand devotional statement, something he was concurrently tackling, in a more secular humanist vein, in the Ninth Symphony. The Missa would be large-hearted - about everything, and everybody. It would be vast and all-encompassing. And yet, its inscription reads "Von Herzen - Möge es wieder - Zu Herzen gehn!" ("From the heart - may it return to the heart!"). Personal."

Soloists for this performance will be soprano Christine Taylor Price, first-place winner of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Rocky Mountain Region; Amanda Lynn Bottoms, mezzo-soprano, winner of the 2016 SAI Vocal Competition; tenor Alex Richardson, Metropolitan Opera artist and André Courville, bass-baritone, first place winner in the Loren L. Zachary and Giargiari Bel Canto Competitions.

The concert will be presented with orchestral accompaniment.

Tickets for the May 6 concert range from $25 to $85, and can be purchased online at http://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2016/5/6/0800/PM/The-Cecilia-Chorus-of-New-York-with-Orchestra/, 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.

The Cecilia Chorus of New York is the 2015 winner of the ASCAP/Chorus America Alice Parker Award; and the 2013 third-place winner for The American Prize in Choral Performance. The Chorus, a secular organization, was founded in 1906 and has evolved into one of the finest avocational performing arts organizations in New York City. Recent performance highlights have included the commission and premiere of Tom Cipullo's Credo for a Secular City at Carnegie Hall in Spring 2014, the New York Premiere of the Mass in D (1892) by Dame Ethel Smyth and revivals of works by Peter Mennin and Isabella Leonarda, as well as the Chorus's first-ever commission/premiere for Carnegie Hall, Divis Cetera by Raphael Fusco in 2012.

Mark Shapiro was appointed the seventh Music Director of The Cecilia Chorus of New York in 2011. He is one of a handful of artistic leaders in North America to have won a prestigious ASCAP Programming Award five times, achieving the unique distinction of winning such an award with three different ensembles. His February 2015 Juilliard performance of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia was characterized in The New York Times as "insightful"; The Times has elsewhere praised his work for its "virtuosity and assurance," and "uncommon polish," and his 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/.

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