The Collegiate Chorale Announces 2012-13 Season

The Collegiate Chorale, led by music director James Bagwell, announces its 71st Season, which will include three Chorale-presented concerts, five collaborative concerts, and a summer tour to the Verbier Festival.

Schoenberg's Kol Nidre and Noam Sheriff's Mechaye Hametim with the Israel Philharmonic open the season, on October 25, 2012; followed the next night by Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 and Charles Ives' Symphony No. 4 with the American Symphony Orchestra on October 26, 2012; Beatrice di Tenda featuring Angela Meade on December 5, 2012; Osvaldo Golijov's Oceana and Philip Glass' Symphony No. 7 "Toltec" featuring vocalist Biella Da Costa on February 27, 2013; and Song of Norway on April 30, 2013 with soloists Judy Kaye and Jason Danieley; all performances at Carnegie Hall. In addition, Collegiate Chorale will be featured in New York Philharmonic performances during June 2013, and will perform at the Verbier Festival in July 2013.

Schoenberg's Kol Nidre and Noam Sheriff's Mechaye Hametim (Revival of the Dead)
Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 7pm at Carnegie Hall
An encore performance of two of the works performed this summer in Israel and Salzburg, Austria, along with Grammy Award-winning baritone Thomas Hampson and the Israel Philharmonic as part of the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's New York Benefit. Zubin Mehta conducts.

Mahler's Symphony No. 8 and Ives' Symphony No. 4
Friday, October 26, 2012 at 8pm at Carnegie Hall
In a fusion of song and symphony, The Collegiate Chorale, Brooklyn Youth Chorus and American Symphony Orchestra join forces in honor of the orchestra's 50th anniversary for a performance of Mahler's massive Symphony of a Thousand. First performed in America in 1916 under the baton of the ASO's founder Leopold Stokowski, this performance of the Mahler 8 will be accompanied by Charles Ives' Symphony No. 4 and Stokowski's arrangement of John Stafford Smith's The Star-Spangled Banner. Leon Botstein conducts.

Beatrice di Tenda
Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 6pm at Carnegie Hall
His penultimate opera, Beatrice di Tenda is considered one of Vincenzo Bellini's finest works. Set in 15th century Milan and based on an actual historical figure, the opera tells of the tormented but saintly wife of the Duke of Milan, falsely accused of adultery by the scorned lover of one of her admirers and sentenced to death by her husband. Premiered in 1833 and famously revived in 1961 by Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne, The Chorale's much-anticipated opera-in-concert performance will feature the extraordinary Angela Meade in the title role. Beatrice di Tenda is characterized by ravishing melodies and exciting finales. Music Director James Bagwell conducts The Collegiate Chorale and American Symphony Orchestra.

Golijov's Oceana and Glass' Symphony No. 7
Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at 7pm Carnegie Hall
In an interesting pairing of contemporary choral compositions by Osvaldo Golijov and Philip Glass, The Chorale turns its attention towards Latin America with the New York premieres of Oceana and Symphony No. 7 "Toltec." Commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival in 1996, Golijov wrote Oceana in the spirit of a Bach cantata, but in a Latin American musical style featuring a jazz/pop vocalist, percussion, and guitars. Set to the poetry of Pablo Neruda, Oceana, in Golijov's words, is the "transmutation of passion into geometry" and that "water and longing, light and hope, the immensity of South America's nature and pain, are here transmuted into pure musical symbols, which nevertheless should be more liquid than the sea and deeper than the yearning that they represent." Venezuelan vocalist Biella Da Costa joins The Chorale in performance of this powerful musical work.

Composed in 2004, Symphony No. 7 - A Toltec Symphony is Philip Glass's personal homage to the ancient traditions and beliefs of the peoples of Mesoamerica, circa 700 BCE to 1100 BCE. Although often cited for their accomplishments in mathematics, calendar making, building and architecture, Glass is most concerned with Toltec personal spiritual development: "The Toltecs emphasized the relationship with the forces of the natural world (the sun, earth, water, fire and wind) in developing their own wisdom traditions." In his symphony, Glass portrays this spirituality with driving rhythms and varying textures in the orchestra and chorus. James Bagwell conducts The Collegiate Chorale and American Symphony Orchestra.

Song of Norway
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 6:30pm at Carnegie Hall
Romantic and with glorious music, Song of Norway tells the story of composer Edvard Grieg as he dreams of fame, but after experiencing it under the patronage of a famous prima donna, realizes that his true creativity and love are at home in Norway. Set in 1860, Robert Wright and George Forrest (of Kismet) cleverly weave Grieg's compositions together in this operetta/musical. Ted Sperling conducts and directs Broadway greats including Jason Danieley and Judy Kaye, and the American Symphony Orchestra joins The Chorale for this special evening.

Subscription tickets can be purchased by contacting The Chorale office at (646) 435-9465 or via the website: collegiatechorale.org. Single tickets start at $20. Tickets to individual Carnegie Hall concerts may also be purchased through the Carnegie Hall Box Office 60 days in advance of each concert and on Carnegie Charge at (212) 247-7800 or www.carnegiehall.org. Single tickets for all concerts can be obtained by calling The Collegiate Chorale at (646) 202-9623.

For Press Tickets, contact: Michelle Tabnick at (646) 765-4773 or michelle@michelletabnickcommunications.com.

The Collegiate Chorale will perform Il Prigioniero by Luigi Dallapiccola with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Alan Gilbert in Avery Fisher Hall on June 6, 8 and 11, 2013.

The Collegiate Chorale will perform the following concerts at the Verbier Festival in July 2013.
July 19: Beethoven Symphony No. 9, conducted by Charles Dutoit
July 23: Schubert, E-flat Mass, conducted by Christian Zacharias
July 25: Selections from Otello, conducted by Valery Gergiev

The mission of The Collegiate Chorale, led by Music Director James Bagwell, is to enrich its audiences through innovative programming and exceptional performances of a broad range of vocal music featuring a premier choral ensemble. Founded in 1941 by the legendary conductor Robert Shaw, The Chorale has established a preeminent reputation for its interpretations of the traditional choral repertoire, vocal works by American composers, and rarely heard operas-in-concert, as well as for commissions and premieres of new works by today's most exciting creative artists. The many guest artists with whom The Chorale has performed in recent years include: Bryn Terfel, Stephanie Blythe, Nathan Gunn, Kelli O'Hara, Victoria Clark, Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, and Deborah Voigt. Last season's highlights included the critically acclaimed concert presentation of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado at Carnegie Hall. Soloists for that concert included Kelli O'Hara, Jason Danieley, Victoria Clark, Christopher Fitzgerald, Jonathan Freeman, and others. In addition to The Chorale's presentations, the chorus performed in five programs during the American Symphony Orchestra's 2011-12 season performed with the Israel Philharmonic in Salzburg and Israel in July 2012, and will return to Verbier in the summer of 2013.

Music Director James Bagwell maintains an active schedule throughout the United States as a conductor of choral, operatic, and orchestral music. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York and is Director of the Music Program at Bard College. At Bard SummerScape he has led numerous theatrical works, most notably Copland's The Tender Land, which received unanimous praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Opera News. He frequently appears as guest conductor for orchestras around the country and abroad, including the Jerusalem Symphony, Tulsa Symphony, and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. He has also prepared The Concert Chorale of New York for performances with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Mostly Mozart Festival, all in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. He has trained choruses for a number of major American and international orchestras and worked with noted conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Louis Langrée, Leon Botstein, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Raymond Leppard, James Conlon, Jesús López-Cobos, Erich Kunzel, Leon Fleischer, and Robert Shaw.

For more information, visit www.collegiatechorale.org.