American Classical Orchestra to Perform All-Bach Program Featuring the Easter Oratorio

The American Classical Orchestra, New York City's leading period instrument orchestra, will return to Lincoln Center for an all-Bach program at Alice Tully Hall, including the Orchestra's first-ever performance of the composer's Easter Oratorio on Tuesday, April 5. It is joined by the ACO Chorus, the highly acclaimed vocal group of professional vocalists from the New York Metro area, returning to the stage for the first time in two years. Titled Renew, the concert celebrates both spring renewal and the joyous rise of the ACO from darkened stages. It will be led by ACO Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford, who will also introduce the music at the beginning of the concert.

Featured soloists are soprano Chloe Holgate, who can be heard on the original cast recording of the acclaimed chamber opera, Acquanetta; mezzo-soprano Helen Karloski, featured on a Grammy Award-winning recording in 2015 with Conspirare; tenor Lawrence Jones, praised by The New York Times, Opera News and The Guardian for his portrayal of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress; and bass Steven Eddy, 1st Prize winner of the 2019 Oratorio Society of New York Competition.

Postponed performances

The ACO's next concert will be The Chaconne Project, on June 22 at the Harlem Parish. The chamber concert was initially scheduled for February 3, but postponed due to the Omicron variant. It features Mexican mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Peraza in a lively program of Baroque repertoire featuring the chaconne, a musical genre that began as bawdy 16th-century Spanish street dances. The performance of Mozart's Requiem and the world premiere of Thomas Crawford's Elegy for Strings, which was scheduled for February 26 and also deferred, will be presented as part of the Orchestra's 2022-23 season.

Renew - Tuesday, April 5 at 8 pm, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center

American Classical Orchestra

American Classical Chorus

Thomas Crawford, conductor

Chloe Holgate, soprano

Helen Karloski, mezzo-soprano

Lawrence Jones, tenor

Steven Eddy, bass

All J.S. Bach Program

Easter Oratorio, BWV 249

Jesu, meine Freude BWV 227

Written when Bach was at the height of his musical powers, the Easter Oratorio includes such biblical roles as John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene, performed by solo singers without the extensive narration found in other large-scale Bach works. It marked one of the composer's early collaborations with Christian Friedrich Henrici, with whom he would work for the rest of his life. After its 1725 premiere, Bach continued to refine and expand the Oratorio over the next two decades. Also on the program is Bach's most popular and revered motets, Jesu, meine Freude BWV 227 in 11 movements.

Tickets, priced at $35, $55, and $75, are available at aconyc.org; by calling ACO at 212.362.2727, ext. 4; and by visiting lincolncenter.org or calling CenterCharge at 212.721.6500. Ticket holders will need to comply with the venue's health and safety requirements, which can be found here.

About Thomas Crawford

The American Classical Orchestra's Artistic Director and Founder Thomas Crawford is a champion of historically accurate performance styles in Baroque, Classical, and Early Romantic music. He founded two Connecticut orchestras: the Fairfield Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, the period instrument offshoot of the Fairfield Orchestra, renamed the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. With the Fairfield Orchestra, Crawford commissioned numerous works by composers, including John Corigliano and William Thomas McKinley, and collaborated with artists such as Joshua Bell, John Corigliano, Vladimir Feltsman, Richard Goode, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, André Watts, and Dawn Upshaw. He also conducted the world premiere of Keith Jarrett's Bridge of Light at Alice Tully Hall, subsequently recorded on the ECM label. An accomplished composer, organist, and choirmaster, Crawford won the prestigious BMI composition award for his organ work Ashes of Rose, premiered at the American Guild of Organists. A passionate activist determined to bring the beauty of period music to a wider audience, Mr. Crawford's educational activities with the Orchestra received a Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth award from the National Endowment for the Arts, recognizing the ACO's dynamic music outreach to New York City schoolchildren. A Pennsylvania native, he holds degrees in organ performance and composition from the Eastman School of Music and Columbia University.

About American Classical Orchestra

Founded in 1984 as the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, the ensemble was renamed the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford established its new and permanent home in New York City in 2005. It is now the City's only full-scale orchestra dedicated to performing 17th, 18th, and 19th century music on period instruments. Described as "simply splendid" by The New York Times, ACO players are the foremost in their field, consisting of artists who also perform with such major New York ensembles as Orchestra of St. Luke's, Handel and Haydn Society, and the New York Philharmonic. Its principal players are Faculty members at The Juilliard School, and the ACO works closely with students enrolled in the School's Historical Performance Program. The American Classical Orchestra Chorus, comprised of professional vocalists from the New York metro area, joins ACO for larger productions. By playing music on original instruments and using historic performance techniques, ACO strives to recreate the sounds that audiences would have heard when the music was first written and performed. The Orchestra and its "supremely skilled musicians" (Theater Scene) have won critical praise for its recordings, educational programs, and concerts, including appearances at Alice Tully Hall and on Lincoln Center's Great Performers series, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for a sold-out 25th anniversary performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

For more information, visit aconyc.org.

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