Click for tickets and discount ticket packages

November: On Tour with Ray Davies

In November, Dessoff backed Ray Davies in a four-city East Coast tour featuring choral versions of The Kinks’ greatest hits. David Temple directed the choir’s performances in Montclair, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.

New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace
A Child of Our Time

On December 31, Dessoff joined George Mathew and the Ubuntu-Shruti Orchestra at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, performing Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time in the annual New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace that Leonard Bernstein founded over a quarter century ago.
More information here.

January-March 2012

Johann Sebastian Bach is the great prism of European music history. A keen student of musical traditions and styles, Bach studied all the major trends in western music that preceded him. He synthesized various aspects of those genres, forging his own distinct musical language from the raw material of a tradition that he venerated. Even if we are not familiar with the models he studied, we encounter through Bach the many facets of the European Baroque: the sober counterpoint of the North Germans, the florid ornamentation of the French, the brilliant virtuosity and melodic invention of the Italians. But going further back, we also encounter in Bach’s music the stolid chorales of Martin Luther’s Reformation, the strict polyphony of the Italian Renaissance and even the ethereal beauty of Roman plainchant—music from the dawn of the common era. Johann Sebastian Bach was the keeper of the flame, a natural encyclopedist whose ability to synthesize all forms of western music ensured that his legacy would be forever entwined with his heritage.

In the same way that all earlier musical styles were refracted by Bach’s compositional prism—reinterpreted, renewed and reinvigorated—so too has Bach’s music been refracted by the prism of each successive generation of composers. J.S. Bach has remained the touchstone of western music for two and a half centuries, the authority figure that composers would either seek to please or defiantly reject. From the time of Bach’s own sons until today, musicians have grappled with Bach’s legacy. Many have been drawn to his mastery of counterpoint; others have been attracted to his depth of musical expression, his ability to convey a wide range of emotions, his peerless melodies, and the sheer joy of his music. By exploring Bach’s legacy through the music of the past 260 years, we are experiencing at once Bach’s reflected genius and the musical Zeitgeist of every generation.

• TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 7:30 pm WHY BACH MATTERS George Stauffer, lecturer Festival Opening Lecture The prominent Bach scholar and Dean of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University examines why Bach’s legacy remains at the core of Western art music. Liederkranz Concert Hall 6 East 87^th Street New York, NY 10128 Tickets: $10-20 [Paypal page and order form]

• FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3 8:00 pm STILE ANTICO Christopher Shepard, conductor The Dessoff Choirs Before and beyond Bach: hear choral and instrumental music that influenced Bach, and that Bach inspired—with works by Palestrina, Mendelssohn, Reger, Gorczycki, Hawley, Marshall, and others. Church of St. Paul the Apostle 405 West 59^th Street (& Columbus Avenue) New York, NY 10019 Tickets: $15-35 [Paypal page and order form]

• TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7 7:30 pm GILDED GOLDBERGS Steven Ryan & Catherine Venable, piano HOLLOWAY Gilded Goldbergs A variation on variations: English composer Robin Holloway recasts Bach’s ingenious Goldberg Variations as a piano duo, using Bach’s canons as a departure point for a virtuosic flight of fancy. Weill Recital Hall 881 7^th Avenue New York, NY 10019 Tickets: $15-35 [Paypal page and order form]

• SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2:00 pm SING-IN: Cantatas Reflected in the Mass in B Minor Christopher Shepard, conductor Sing with Dessoff for a day: raise your voice with ours as we read through the cantata movements Bach recast in his setting of the Mass in B Minor. Immanuel Lutheran Church 122 East 88^th Street New York, NY 10128 Tickets: $5-10 [Paypal page and order form]

• SATURDAY, MARCH 3 8:00 pm MASS IN B MINOR Christopher Shepard, conductor Sabrina Learman, soprano Jane Edwards, soprano Sarah Taylor, mezzo-soprano Matthew Anderson, tenor Thomas Jones, bass The Dessoff Choirs Arcadia Players BACH Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 “The greatest musical artwork of all times and peoples”—come and hear again why the Mass in B Minor has been hailed by generations as the zenith of creative expression. Church of St. Mary the Virgin 145 West 46^th Street New York, NY 10036 Tickets: $20-55 [Paypal page and order form]

PÄRT: Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem

The Dessoff Choirs
Christopher Shepard, conductor
Jesus: Mark Sullivan, bass-baritone
Pilate: Luke Redmond, tenor
Evangelist quartet:
   Ilana Davidson, soprano
   Sarah Rose Taylor, mezzo-soprano
   Daniel Neer, tenor
   Michael Conley, bass

Church of St. Mary the Virgin
145 West 46th Street (6th/7th Aves.)
Manhattan
Friday, February 25, 2011, 8:00 pm
"Behind the Music" Pre-Concert Talk, 7:30

A devout Eastern Orthodox Christian, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is best known among choral enthusiasts for a group of large-scale religious works from the 1980s and ’90s, the first of which is his beautiful and haunting Passion from 1982. Through the use of chant-like lines traded among soloists, chamber players, and choir, Pärt weaves a mesmerizing musical tapestry that tells the story of Jesus’ crucifixion.