The Collegiate Chorale presents Tippett’s A Child of Our Time and Bruckner’s Te Deum on Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. at Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue, NYC.
The performance features Nicole Cabell, Marietta Simpson, Russell Thomas, John Relyea and the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Bagwell.
Sir Michael Tippett’s “A Child of Our Time (1941)” is a unique oratorio, structured in three parts to emulate Handel’s Messiah and using traditional African-American spirituals in a form similar to Bach’s use of the chorale in his “Passions,” all with a decidedly twentieth-century musical language.
The text of this stirring work reflects Tippett’s pacifism and belief that people contain both “shadow and light.”
Soprano Nicole Cabell has performed this work to great critical acclaim and has made it a signature piece. She will be joined by Marietta Simpson, mezzo-soprano, Russell Thomas, tenor, and John Relyea, bass-baritone. Paired with this riveting work will be the powerful Te Deum by Anton Bruckner and conducted by James Bagwell.
The Collegiate Chorale’s 70th season began with “Moïse et Pharaon” and continues with Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” on April 10, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at Carnegie Hall, featuring Chuck Cooper, Jason Danieley, Christopher Fitzgerald, Kelli O’Hara, Brad Oscar, Lauren Worsham, and Amy Justman, directed and conducted by Ted Sperling.
The season will conclude with a program entitled “Contemporary Voices” led by Maestro Bagwell on May 21, 2012 at St. Bartholomew’s Church. Highlights of the program include Copland’s In the Beginning – which The Chorale premiered under its founder Robert Shaw – the Poulenc Gloria, and the New York premiere of a setting of Psalm 67 by the young and celebrated Israeli composer, Avner Dorman.
