June 2017 - American Voices

AMERICAN VOICES:
Choral Music Reflecting America's Diversity

A great end to our 40th Anniversary Year...music clips from the concert below

On June 10th, In a reprise of our 2016 joint concert held in Washington, D.C. at the home of the Congressional Chorus of Washington DC, Grace Chorale hosted the Congressional Chorus in Brooklyn. The theme was American Composers and featured a Jazz Big Band and Brass quartet. It was great fun singing with them, and a wonderful concert with original music commissioned by both Chorales and a reprise of selections from our celebrated Duke Ellington Sacred Concert performed in 2016. The concert was held at Saint Ann's Church in Brooklyn Heights,

Music included:
By the Congressional Chorus:

VAMO LA!  by Christopher Urquiaga
(First Generation American Composer of Peruvian and Brazilian descent) 
Movement One - "Those Times"
Movement Two - "Amor Profundo"
Movement Three - "Vamo La!"

Excerpts from CALLING ALL DAWNS by Christopher Tin
(Chinese-American Composer) 
Movement One - "Baba Yetu" (Swahili)
Movement Five - "Rassemblons-Nous" (French)
Movement Ten - "Hamsafar"  (Farsi)
Movement Eleven - "Sukla-Krsne" (Sanskrit)
Movement Twelve - "Kia Hora Te Marino" (Maori) 

By the Grace Chorale of Brooklyn:

"A Red, Red Rose" by James Mulholland
"Three Joyce Poems" from James Joyce's Chamber Music by Brooklyn-based composer Vince Peterson
"April Song" by Brooklyn-based composer Matt Podd

BOTH CHORUSES:

Sacred Concert by Duke Ellington
Praise God and Dance
Come Sunday
Almighty God
Praise God and Dance Finale

America the Beautiful arrangement by Michael McCarthy

April 2017 - Songs of Spring

On April 28th and 29th, GCB performed an eclectic medley of songs in celebration of the Spring season. The concerts took place at the First Unitarian in Brooklyn Hts. and at All Saints in Park Slope with the accompaniment of a jazz quartet and poetry recitations. Of particular note was the premiere of "April Song," a GCB commissioned piece by Brooklyn-based composer, Matt Podd.

Listen in.

... and the encore

December 2016 - O Magnum Mysterium

On Friday, December 9th and Sunday, December 11th, Grace Chorale of Brooklyn performed its annual Holiday Concert at Grace Episcopal Church in Brooklyn Hts. accompanied by an eight-piece brass ensemble and organ. 
The music opened with an instrumental piece
Canzona per sonare No.2 by Giovanni Gabrieli
followed by the chorale singing:
Hope For Resolution ( A Song for Mandela and deKlerk)
arranged by Paul Caldwell and Sean Ivory
Christmas Cantata
by Daniel Pinkham
O Magnum Mysterium
by Morten Lauridsen
Gloria by John Rutter
and
Joy (from The Preacher's Wife)
arranged by David Maddux

April 2016 - Brooklyn Premiere of Duke Ellington's 'Sacred Concert'

On April 29, 30, and May 1, 2016 our Spring Concert featured Duke Ellington's 'Sacred Concert', a rarely performed but highly regarded set of improvisational music. Throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, the legendary jazz musician toured the country with his swing band, collaborating with local choirs in performances of what he called “Sacred Concerts” or “Sacred Music.” GCB was accompanied in performance by the Brooklyn Contemporary Chorus (Aaron Williams, Conductor), a 16-piece jazz band (Matt Podd, Band Leader), jazz singer Tulivu, dancers from Jamal Jackson’s nationally recognized dance company, JJDC, and up-and-coming tap dancer Dario Natarelli.  For more details on our collaborators, click here.

Jason Asbury Conducts

If you missed the Ellington Concert, you can
watch the 5/29 performance here
or listen to a few music clips below...

...and the rousing finale:

December 2015 - Bach's Christmas Oratorio

On December 18th and 20th, our Winter Concert featured The Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, by J.S. Bach. We were supported by members of the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra and four exceptional soloists:

Marie Masters, soprano,
Rachel Arky, mezz-soprano,
Michael Kuhn, tenor,
Peter Clark, baritone

April 2015 – Twentieth Century British Choral Masterpieces

On April 23 and 26, 2015, Grace Chorale of Brooklyn performed with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Nicholas Armstrong in a concert entitled "Twentieth Century British Choral Masterpieces."

Two pieces by 20th century British composers were presented in the Beaux Arts Court at The Brooklyn Museum of Art:  Belshazzar's Feast, a cantata by William Walton, and Ritual Dances by Michael Tippett.

Belshazzar's Feast, remains one of William Walton's most celebrated masterpieces, a dramatic, monumental work that vividly depicts Babylon's excesses and subsequent downfall.

Ritual Dances, with music and libretto by Michael Tippett, is a work extracted from The Midsummer Marriage – Tippet's highly regarded opera in three acts. In the words of one reviewer: "A tonal pallette that most can only dream of."

The Baritone Soloist, Christopher Dylan Herbert, was exceptional. Our Music Director Jason Asbury joined the chorale as a singer, while Nicholas Armstrong, Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, took the baton.

It was a tough Venue with high Reverb...but here are couple of clips:

January 2015 - Luminous Night

For our annual Winter Concert of the 2014-2015 season, Grace Chorale of Brooklyn presented a program of music for Chorus and String Quartet.

Luminous Night, began with "Elegischer Gesang" by Ludwig van Beethoven, and was followed by works by living composers. After performing Eric Whitacre's "Five Hebrew Love Songs", a smaller chamber group from within the Chorale performed Veronika Krausas' "Language of the Birds." 

After a surprise rendition by the String Quartet of a lovely Beethoven piece for strings,  the concert concluded with a commissioned piece by Brooklyn composer, Vince Peterson, based on excerpts from "Chamber Music," a text by James Joyce, and Ola Gjeilo's "Luminous Night of the Soul,"

 The performances were held on Friday, January 23 at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Brooklyn Heights, Saturday, January 24 at All Saints  Episcopal Church in Park Slope, NY, and Sunday, January 25 at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.

Concert Notes:

Ludwig van Beethoven's Elegischer Gesang, Op. 118 represents his late infatuation with the string quartet genre. The halting delivery of these tender words by an anonymous poet recalls some of Mozart’s heartbreaking arias, while also looking forward to Beethoven’s later style in which musical ideas are allowed to develop freely, without the constraint of standard Classical forms and phrasing.

"Five Hebrew Love Songs" by Eric Whitacre was conceived as a set of troubadour songs based on a text by Hila Plitmann who was born and raised in Jerusalem.  They are laced with overtones of friendship, discovery, and love and explore harmonies with somewhat full choral and instrumental accompaniment.

Veronika Krausas' "Language of the Birds" was inspired by the San Francisco artist Brian Goggin’s site-specific sculptural installation, The Language of the Birds, which he created with Dorka Keehn.  The installation is an illuminated flock of twenty-three translucent, suspended open books with bindings positioned to simulate the wings of birds in flight.  Words, taken from books by neighborhood authors are scattered and embedded in the plaza as if the words have fallen from the pages.

Grace Chorale was thrilled to continue its commission series of works by local composers with Three Joyce Poems. In the words of its Brooklyn-based composer, Vince Peterson: "Three Joyce Poems is a reflection on fictional and non-fictional matters. The fiction is the digest of a man in love who goes to meet his intended in the woods, all the while his instincts ringing with ominous warnings about falling in love. After he gives himself to his beloved, the two quickly realize that, like all things in life, love is transitory, living "but a day." In other words, fall in love at your own risk, and if you choose to do so, embrace it for the moments of joy it gives to you, rather than focusing on looming heartache. Joyce is a master of this sentiment in these beautiful texts from his incomparable "Chamber Music" - a set of thirty three poems - all in this vein.  The non-fictional matter is one of homage to my late teacher and friend, Conrad Susa, who in the course of his life, managed to set all thirty three of Joyce's poems in a series of three cycles. Though I can only hope to hold a candle to Conrad's genius, I know that the universality of these wonderful texts lends itself well to multiple styles and interpretations - something that my good teacher would have always celebrated."

Ola Gjielo's "Luminous Night of the Soul" uses a text by Charles Anthony Silvestri as well as a stanza from the St. John of the Cross’ poem.  In his composition, Ola features the piano prominently, not just as generic, unassuming accompaniment, but as an equal partner to the choir, aided and supported by the string quartet

Luminous Night - A Concert for Chorus and String Quartet was made possible with public funds from the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered in Kings County by Brooklyn Arts Council.

November 2014 – Cavalleria rusticana

On the weekend of November 22-23, Grace Chorale of Brooklyn performed Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni in collaboration with the String Orchestra of Brooklyn. The performances were held at St. Ann and The Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights...read the reviews here.

A tale of cuckoldry and revenge starring:

Santuzza (Sarah Hetzel)
Turiddu (Alex Richardson)
Lola (Joan Peitscher)
Turiddu’s mother, Lucia (Kirsten Sollek)
Lola’s husband, Alfio (Richard Lippold)

 Direction by Sam Helfrich.

May 2014 - Orff's Carmina Burana

The Chorus Relaxes

Jason Conducts

Percussionist

Tenor Soloist Anthony Webb

Baritone Soloist Peter Clark

In a season of polar vortexes and startling snowfall amounts, it was sometimes hard to imagine that spring would ever come again. But just as the unseen forces brought the crocuses and daffodils, the voices of Grace & Spiritus Chorale of Brooklyn burst forth on May 2 and 3 in concert performances of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff at the Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity. 

A perennial audience favorite, Orff’s masterpiece is a cantata based on 24 medieval poems in both Latin and Middle High German.  Written in 1936, the text is lusty, dealing with timeless themes of love, sex, drinking, gambling, fate and fortune. The music is, by turns, boisterous and hypnotic, and has been featured in numerous films and at least one notorious faux Super Bowl commercial.

Soloists Peter Clark (Baritone), Anthony Webb (Tenor) and Louise Sullivan (Soprano) accompanied by three percussionists and two pianists joined the chorale to standing ovations from our largest audiences yet! On Saturday night, almost three hundred music lovers filled St. Ann's (including the balconies).

Listen in below: 

January 2014 - Music of Mid-Winter

The theme for winter 2014 was Music of Mid-Winter, which was brought to life with three works. The program featured a Cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, a song cycle by the American composer, Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943), and a commissioned piece by Brooklyn composer, Lainie Fefferman (b. 1982).  These three pieces presented the winter theme from a variety of perspectives.The first half featured a cantata, Sie warden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), which was composed in 1724. Bach’s skillful use of counterpoint expresses the essence of the high Baroque period. The familiar harmonic language of this Baroque masterpiece served as a launching pad for the more contemporary works that followed.

The cantata was followed by newly commissioned work, And how was your day today?, by Brooklyn’s own Lainie Fefferman. Grace & Spiritus has been committed to commissioning new works each season, and Ms. Fefferman's unique and challenging piece seeks to reproduce the emotional arc of a typical work day over the span of twelve short movements.

The concert concluded with a performance of a song cycle, Mid-Winter Songs, by the American composer, Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943). Lauridsen has emerged as one of the leading choral composers of our time.  Mid-Winter Songs, a choral cycle set to poems by Robert Graves, is rich in classical allusion, and takes winter (or, in two cases, imply winter – winter about to come, winter just gone) as their setting.  Lauridsen’s rich and accessible harmonic language brings these dramatic texts to life in imaginative ways.