GVO to Perform Verdi's Requiem with St. George's Choral Society

On Sunday, April 29, 2018 at 2:30pm, the Greenwich Village Orchestra (GVO) returns to the beautiful 19th-century Church of the Incarnation (209 Madison Ave.) for its final concert of the season, Requiem Aeternam. The GVO joins forces with St. George's Choral Society, under artistic director and conductor Matthew Lewis, for Verdi's epic Requiem. Requiem's soloists will feature soprano Rebecca Farley, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis, tenor Jonathan Tetelman, and bass Christian Zaremba. The concert is part of GVO's 2017-2018 season "On the Town," a celebration of its home borough of Manhattan led by Music Director Barbara Yahr.

Of the concert Yahr says, "It's always a thrill to tackle a monumental and profound work like the VerdiRequiem. This is a tour de force for all of us - soloists, chorus, orchestra and conductor. I can't imagine better partners than Matthew Lewis, his wonderful St. George's Choral Society, and our four fantastic soloists. This is a concert not to be missed."

The Greenwich Village Orchestra was founded in 1986 by a group of musicians from the New York Metropolitan area. The 70-member community orchestra is made up of accountants, actors, artists, attorneys, carpenters, editors, physicians, professors, photographers, computer programmers, retirees, scientists, students, and teachers. For more than thirty years, the Greenwich Village Orchestra has had a single purpose: to bring the best performances of great music to its dedicated audiences. The GVO is committed to making music at the highest possible level and enriching the lives of our players and our audience through emotionally charged, exhilarating performances.

The GVO regularly performs with internationally acclaimed soloists. In recent years, the orchestra has performed alongside soloists such as violinists Andrés Cárdenes, Itamar Zorman, and Hye-Jin Kim; cellists Edward Arron, Raman Ramakrishnan, David Heiss, and Brook Speltz; soprano Christine Goerke; mezzo-sopranos Jennifer Johnson Cano and Naomi O'Connell; baritone Jesse Blumberg; trumpet soloist Brandon Ridenour; and more.

Matthew Lewis maintains an active career as an organist, choral conductor, and educator. As artistic director and conductor of St. George's Choral Society since 2005, he directs the chorus in major works of the repertoire. He is organist and director of music at the Church of St. James the Less in Scarsdale, NY, where he directs the church's choirs, manages the concert series, and plays the newly-installed Klais organ. For 23 years he was organist and director of music the Church of the Incarnation, where he directed a group of professional singers in a variety of liturgical choral music. Dr. Lewis has also served as organist and choir director at Temple Israel in Lawrence, NY, since 1993. Dr. Lewis has been a member of the organ faculty of the Juilliard School Pre-College division since 1993, and served as adjunct assistant professor of organ at Westminster Choir College for 12 years. He has presented solo organ recitals in the United States, Canada, France, and China (Beijing), has been a featured artist on WNYC and Pipedreams (NPR), and has performed the complete organ works of César Franck several times, including at New York City's Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. At The Juilliard School, he completed the doctor of musical arts degree as a student of Jon Gillock. Dr. Lewis is the former recipient of a Fulbright Grant and the Annette Kade Fellowship from the Council of International Education for study in Paris, where he was a student of organ-virtuoso Marie-Madeleine Duruflé. He has studied choral conducting with Robert Page.

About Barbara Yahr
Now in her sixteenth season with the GVO, Music Director Barbara Yahr continues to lead the orchestra to new levels of distinction. With blockbuster programming and internationally renowned guest artists, the GVO under Barbara's baton, has grown into an innovative, collaborative institution offering a full season of classical music to our local community.

A native of New York, Yahr's career has spanned from the United States to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Her previous posts include Principal Guest Conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, Resident Staff Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony under Maestro Lorin Maazel and conductor of the Pittsburgh Youth Orchestra. She has appeared as a guest conductor with such orchestras as the Bayerische Rundfunk, Dusseldorf Symphoniker, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Frankfurt Radio, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Janacek Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony, and the National Symphony in Washington D.C. She has also conducted the orchestra in Anchorage, Calgary, Chattanooga, Columbus, Detroit, Flint, Louisiana, New Mexico, Lubbock, Richmond as well as the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber, Rochester Philharmonic, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony and the Chautauqua Festival Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared in Israel conducting in both Jerusalem and Elat and as an opera conductor, has led new productions in Frankfurt, Giessen, Tulsa, Cincinnati, Minnesota and at The Mannes School of Music in NYC. She has coached the actors on the set of the Amazon Series, Mozart in the Jungle, and last season, conducted the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Yahr is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Middlebury College where she studied piano and philosophy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Conducting from the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Max Rudolf and an MM in Music Theory from the Manhattan School of Music. She was a student of Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School in Hancock, Maine.

Yahr's commitment to finding new ways to reach a broader population with music ultimately led her into the field of music therapy. She is a Board Certified Music Therapist, with an MA in music therapy from NYU and post-graduate certification from the world-renowned Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy? in New York City. Her pioneering, community music therapy project, Together in Music, brings orchestral music to the special needs community with uniquely interactive programs. Barbara is married to Alex Lerman and has two adult step-children, Abe and Dania, and a 15 year-old son, Ben.

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