Upper School Choir Returns to Carnegie Hall on March 23

Every two to three years, since 2004, the St. Andrew’s Episcopal School Choir has answered the call to shine its musical light on the stage of New York’s legendary Carnegie Hall. Their 2019 visit, on Saturday, March 23 at 7 pm, will be their eighth appearance under the auspices of MidAmerica Productions.
“We are honored and thrilled to be invited back to perform at Carnegie Hall this year,” says Cate Gasco, St. Andrew's Upper School Choir Director. “For many of our students, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share one of the most renowned stages in the world with other excellent student musicians, and we are very grateful for the opportunity. I am so proud to see my students so excited to share their love of music and of this beautiful work, Dan Forrest’s LUX, with friends, family, and guests in New York.”

Forrest’s LUX: The Dawn From On High, composed in 2018, explores various facets of lux (Latin for “light”), in texts ranging from ancient liturgical chant to Scripture to modern secular love poetry. The music is inspired thematically and spiritually by these texts; visually by the light in the Reims Cathedral in France and at the Poulnabrone Dolmen in Ireland, and musically by a variety of sources from ancient chant to modern minimalist composers. The five movements trace a symmetrical journey through time -- from ancient prophecy to today and back again; or from another perspective, from a day’s dawn, through the sun’s high point in the sky, and then to the setting of the sun on the horizon at the end of the day.
 
Along with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School Choir will share the stage as part of a chorus of more than 150, under the direction of David R. Thye, with the following participating choirs:
 
  • Mosinee High School Concert Choir, Mosinee, WI (Carla Dul, Director)
  • Central Regional High School Choir, Bayville, NJ (Beth Moore, Director)
  • Marist College Chamber Choir, Poughkeepsie, NY (Sarah Williams, Director)
The March 23 concert at Carnegie Hall will also feature guest conductor John Ratledge, who will lead Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna with a choir of more than 140 voices drawn from five participating choruses:
 
  • Middletown Concert Chorale, Middletown, NY (Danielle Cornacchio, Director)
  • Greater Atlanta Christian School Concert Choir, Norcross, GA (Marcus Miller, Director)
  • Hillcrest High School Ensemble, Tuscaloosa, AL (Khristina Motley, Director)
  • Chancel Choir of First United Methodist Church, Tuscaloosa, AL (John Ratledge, Director)
  • Wagner College Choir, Staten Island, NY (Roger Wesby, Director)
 
The concert will close with a performance of Beethoven’s rarely heard Triple Concerto, featuring the international soloists Gianmaria Melis (violin), Francesco Mariozzi (cello) and Giuseppe Gullotta (piano), under the baton of conductor Corrado Valvo.
 
Purchase Tickets
Concerts in the Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman Stage are $150, $100, and $50. Tickets may be obtained by contacting CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, visiting the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57th Street and 7th Avenue in New York, NY, or by going online to www.carnegiehall.org). For more information, contact molly.waymire@piptix.com

Photo by Jeff Goldberg/Esto for WhereTraveler
 
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