The Masterwork Chorus
Upcoming Concerts
Summer Sings 2008
Come sing with fellow music lovers on Wednesday evenings at 7:30pm on July 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30.
Location: Xavier Center, College of St. Elizabeth, Convent Station, NJ - Directions
July 2
Faure Requiem and Beethoven Mass in C
Conductor: Tom Cunningham
Associate Conductor, The Masterwork Chorus
Director, Manhattan Choral Ensemble
July 9
A Night at the Opera: Great Opera Choruses
Conductor: Jason Tramm
Music Director, Coro Lirico, Summit Music Festival, NJ State
Opera
Choral Director, Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association
July 16
Mozart Requiem and Duruflé Requiem
Conductor: Patrick Gardner
Music Director, Riverside Choral Society
Director of Choral Activities, Mason Gross School of the Arts,
Rutgers
July 23
Haydn Creation (in English)
Conductor: Trent Johnson
Music Director, Oratorio Singers of Westfield, NJ
Organist and Director of Music and Arts, First United Methodist
Church, Westfield
July 30
Mendelssohn Elijah
Conductor: Thomas Carlo Bo
Artistic Director, Garden State Music Festival
Former Artistic Director/Conductor for Opera at Florham
Cost
$12 per evening - includes score rental, professional soloists and refreshments.
$6 for students and listeners
Booklet of 5 tickets for $50 (tickets may be shared)
For questions or additional information please call (973) 455-7008.
Masterwork Pilots New Education Initiative
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable. – Aaron Copland
Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music. – Sergei Rachmaninoff
Masterwork Chorus members know that making time for singing (for most members, a pleasure since childhood) adorns their lives with joy unavailable through any other pursuit, and we are eager to convey to students that they too can choose to “keep on singing” throughout life, no matter what else they do. We look forward with great excitement to the start of our new education initiative in collaboration with Bridgewater-Raritan High School music teacher John Wilson and his talented BRHS Chamber Choir. Masterwork’s Music Director, Dr. Andrew Megill, Associate Conductor Thomas Cunningham, and members of Masterwork’s professional team and Chamber Choir will teach and mentor the students in preparation for two exciting performances: The first, scheduled for the evening of Friday April 4 at Martinsville United Methodist Church, 1949 Washington Valley Road, teams the students with Masterwork’s Chamber Choir in charming arrangements of favorite folk songs and classics, some with harp accompaniment. Tickets will be available at the door. Later in the month, the BRHS Chamber Choir will join The Masterwork Chorus in our performance of Joseph Haydn’s Little Organ Mass as part of Two Haydns and a Mozart scheduled for Sunday April 27, 3 pm, at Dorothy Young Center at Drew University in Madison, NJ. The headliner at this concert will be Michael Haydn’s inspiring but rarely performed Requiem in C.
“Transcendent!” - Masterwork’s Carnegie Hall Messiah a Triumph
Whether they came to honor their family’s holiday tradition or made a last-minute choice to drop in on Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall, audiences this year were treated to an extraordinarily passionate Messiah that, most agreed, was unsurpassed in Masterwork’s recent history. The audience at times could not wait for “appropriate” moments before breaking into applause for sections of the piece that stirred them, particularly the opening choral movement, “And the Glory” and, later, “For Unto Us A Child Is Born.” During the last bars of the glorious final “Amen” fugue, the audience, without waiting to hear the last notes, exploded with an emotional standing ovation that lasted through three cacophonous curtain calls for Maestro Andrew Megill, soloists Clara Rottsolk, Kathleen Flynn, Christopher Cock, and Jeffrey Fields, and the fine Masterwork Orchestra.
The loudest cheers were reserved for the moment when, at Maestro Megill’s signal, the chorus stood en masse to acknowledge the crowd’s approval. “Transcendent!” was one audience member’s précis of the evening. To quote another attendee, “The concert was perfectly executed and The Masterwork Chorus’ love of music was obvious… I will be waiting in line to get tickets to their next performance, on April 27, 2008 in Madison, New Jersey.” Given the nearly sold-out house for Masterwork’s Messiah at Community Theatre in Morristown the day after Carnegie Hall, that fan may be correct about having to wait in line. Tickets for the April 27 performance of Michael Haydn’s Messiah and Mozart’s Vespers (Vesperae solennes de confessore, K.339) at Drew University in Madison will be available online beginning in February.
Looking ahead to next season, Masterwork’s Carnegie Hall Messiah performances are scheduled for December 18 (evening) and December 21 (afternoon and evening). In the meantime, signing up for Masterwork’s email newsletter (below) will ensure patrons the very earliest notice of performances and ticket-ordering opportunities.
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