The Dessoff Choirs is one of New York City’s leading choruses. Founded in 1924 by Margarete Dessoff, it has established a reputation for pioneering performances of choral works from the pre-Baroque era through the 21st century. The “s” in Choirs connotes the group’s various ensembles, ranging from the large Symphonic Choir appearing with major orchestras to the smaller Chamber Choir heard during tonight’s program. Many Dessoff members have professional music experience, though most earn their livings in other areas. Dessoff is an independent, non-profit organization, not affiliated with any religious or community group.

In the mid-20th century, Dessoff’s reputation grew throughout the country thanks to a distinguished collection of Renaissance pieces, then little-known, edited by music director Paul Boepple. Many of these pieces were released by the choir on LP. In 1999, Dessoff received the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming, for pieces including the world premiere of Paul Moravec’s “Songs of Love and War.” That piece may be heard on Dessoff’s CD Reflections, which also features works by Robert Convery, John Corigliano, and Ned Rorem.

Dessoff is active in New York’s musical life, presenting its own concerts under the baton of Music Director James Bagwell and in collaboration with ensembles ranging from the Kronos Quartet to the New York Philharmonic. In October, the Symphonic Choir performed with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, at Carnegie Hall and at SUNY Purchase’s Performing Arts Center. This was Dessoff’s fourth program in four years with Maestro Ashkenazy. Other recent engagements have been with the American Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and with Tan Dun in his haunting Water Passion after Saint Matthew.

Dessoff has taken part in New York, American, and world premieres of many works, by composers such as Marshall Coid, Philip Glass, and Sir John Tavener. Dessoff has performed frequently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, with the Lincoln Center Festival, and at the Mostly Mozart Festival, including collaborations with the Mark Morris Dance Group and an appearance in the “Live from Lincoln Center” Emmy-nominated telecast of Mozart’s Requiem. Other major orchestras with which Dessoff has performed include the Cleveland Orchestra, the London Philharmonia, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque, and Opera Orchestra of New York.

The 2006-07 season continues with “Musicians Wrestle Everywhere: 20th & 21st-Century Choral Music,” on March 10, 2007 at Merkin Concert Hall, and “Weill·Hindemith·Bartok,” on May 10, 2007 at Miller Theatre. For more information, please visit www.dessoff.org.

James Bagwell, Music Director, maintains an active schedule throughout the United States as a conductor of choral, operatic, and orchestral literature. In 2005, he was appointed as Dessoff’s seventh Music Director. During his first season with Dessoff, he led three concerts, with music ranging from Gabrieli to William Bolcom to Tarik O’Regan (b.1978). He also prepared the Dessoff Symphonic Choir for a performance with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, in Charles Ives’s “Holidays” Symphony.

Later this month Mr. Bagwell will make his major orchestra debut, leading the Jerusalem Symphony in concerts in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In March 2007, he will conduct a subscription concert with the Tulsa Symphony. In 2005, he led six sold-out performances of Copland’s The Tender Land, as part of the Bard SummerScape Festival; the production received unanimous praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Opera News. This past summer he returned to SummerScape to conduct three operettas by Offenbach, and he returns there in 2007 to lead a production of The Sorcerer. Now in his eighth season as Music Director of Light Opera Oklahoma, Mr. Bagwell conducted three new productions for the 2006 summer festival season, including the company’s return to the OK Mozart International Music Festival in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Past guest-conducting activities have included the premiere of Cinderella’s Bad Magic by microtonal composer Kyle Gann, as part of the Alternativa Festival in Moscow in 2002. In 2001, Mr. Bagwell returned to conduct the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra after his debut two years earlier. Since 2001, he has conducted numerous concerts with the Bard Festival Chorale and the Bard Chamber Players.

In 2003, Mr. Bagwell was named Director of Choruses for the Bard Music Festival, conducting and preparing choral works during the summer festival at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard, and at Alice Tully Hall in New York. Since 2004, he has prepared The Concert Chorale of New York for concerts with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Mostly Mozart Festival (including a national broadcast this past summer on “Live from Lincoln Center”), all at Avery Fisher Hall. Mr. Bagwell has trained choruses for a number of major American orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, plus the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Japan. He has worked with such noted conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Leon Botstein, James Conlon, Leon Fleischer, Erich Kunzel, Louis Langrée, Raymond Leppard, Jesús López-Cobos, Christof Perick, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Shaw, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Since 1997, James Bagwell has been Music Director of the May Festival Youth Chorus in Cincinnati, conducting regularly during the May Festival, Carolfest, and outreach concerts throughout the Cincinnati area. In addition to his work with the Youth Chorus, he prepared the May Festival Summer Chorus for eight seasons for the Riverbend Summer Festival.

James Bagwell is artistic director for The New York Repertory Singers, and serves as conductor for the Berkshire Bach Society Choruses. From 1998 to 2001, he was Artistic Director and Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir and the Indianapolis Chamber Singers, a professional ensemble he formed in 1999. In 2000, he joined the faculty of Bard College, where he is Director of the Music Program; he will launch a new graduate program in choral conducting through the Bard Conservatory of Music in Fall 2007.

Pianist Steven Ryan took first place in the 2001 Concours des Grands Amateurs de Piano. At the close of this international competition he was engaged to perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor at the Sorbonne in Paris. That performance was filmed by the national television network France 2 and broadcast throughout France in 2002. In addition to winning the French competition, Steven took second prize in the 2000 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs.

During the summer of 2004, Mr. Ryan performed Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Lake Placid Symphonietta. The following autumn, he made his solo debut at Les Invalides in Paris. In the fall of 2005 he played Bach’s fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and later that season he played the Tchaikovsky, both with the Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Ryan will be joining the Greater Trenton Symphony again this coming New Year’s Eve, for a performance of “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Mr. Ryan has performed as an orchestral keyboardist with most of the major orchestras in New York City, including members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He has played celesta with the legendary Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall; piano, harpsichord, and portative organ with The Dessoff Choirs; and synthesizer with the Moody Blues rock band. He has collaborated with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Neemi Järvi, Bernhard Haitink, Gerard Schwarz, and Maxim Shostakovich, among others.

Steven Ryan earned his bachelor of music degree from the University of Minnesota. While in Minneapolis, he had the honor of assisting Sir Neville Marriner as a rehearsal pianist, often working one-on-one with him and his guest soloists. Mr. Ryan also appeared with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Charles Dutoit. He placed second in the Minnesota
Orchestra’s WAMSO competition, playing before a jury that included Pinchas Zukerman and Sir Neville Marriner. Dessoff is honored to have Steven Ryan as its regular accompanist.