New Amsterdam Singers to Perform Six New York Premieres in May

The New Amsterdam Singers (NAS), led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will present its final program of the season, titled The Good Earth: New Music for the Land and Its Fragile Glory, with concerts Sunday, May 22, 2016 at 4:00 P.M. at the Church of the Holy Trinity, 316 East 88th Street, and Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 8:00 P.M. at Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, 554 West End Avenue (at 87th Street.)

The performances feature six New York premieres of works celebrating the natural world, all written by living composers. They include Robert Paterson's Choral Suite from A New Eaarth, which will receive the world premiere of the piano/choral version of the four-movement work on texts by Wendell Berry, James Joyce, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth. The work takes its title, A New Eaarth, from author/environmentalist Bill McKibben's assertion that we may call our planet Eaarth because it is still recognizable, but fundamentally different.

Lighter music includes Jabberwocky by Judith Shatin; Three by Langston by Ricky Ian Gordon; and Hallelujah by Shawn Kirchner. Among other poets whose work has inspired composers on the program are Hildegard of Bingen, Emily Dickinson, Vachel Lindsay, and E.E. Cummings.

Clara Longstreth

Clara Longstreth has conducted New Amsterdam Singers since its formation in 1968. She has served on the faculty of Rutgers University, where she conducted the Voorhees Choir of Douglass College. A student of conductor G. Wallace Woodworth at Harvard University, Ms. Longstreth trained for her master's degree at The Juilliard School under Richard Westenberg. Further study included work with Amy Kaiser and Semyon Bychkov at the Mannes College of Music, and with Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival.

In 1997 Ms. Longstreth guest-conducted the Limo?n Dance Company in performances with NAS and the Riverside Choir. In 2000 she conducted NAS and the Mannes College Orchestra in the folk opera, Down in the Valley during Symphony Space's "Wall to Wall Kurt Weill" program. She is a frequent guest conductor at the annual Messiah Sing-In at David Geffen Hall and at the summer sings of the West Village Chorale, the New York Choral Society, and other choruses. In 2009 she received an Alumnae Recognition Award from Radcliffe College for her founding and longtime direction of New Amsterdam Singers. Of Ms. Longstreth's programs, Allan Kozinn wrote in The New York Times, "When a director takes up the challenge of building a cohesive program around a broad theme, we are reminded that programming can be an art."

New Amsterdam Singers

The New Amsterdam Singers was founded in 1968 by Clara Longstreth. A recent issue of The New Yorker called Ms. Longstreth "one of the more imaginative choral programmers around" and the New Amsterdam Singers "a superb amateur group." The New York Times described the chorus's June 2012 concert as "a varied and beautifully performed a cappella program." On March 13, 2016, NAS presented Golgotha, a 90-minute oratorio for chorus, orchestra, organ, and soloists by the Swiss composer Frank Martin in its first performance since 1952, as part of the Trinity Wall Street Concert Series.

NAS has performed with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein; American Russian Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall under Leon Botstein; Concordia Orchestra and Anonymous Four in Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light with Marin Alsop at Avery Fisher Hall; and with the Limon Dance Company in Koda?ly's Missa Brevis. In 2010, the chorus sang concerts in Cuba and at a Holiday Open House at the White House. In 2013, NAS toured South Africa. For more information about the New Amsterdam Singers, go to www.nasingers.org.

Tickets

For ticket information call (914) 712-8708 or go online at www.nasingers.org. Advance tickets are $20.00 General Admission, $15.00 Senior, and $10.00 Student. $25 tickets at the door.