MAO/Seton Hall University Concert at Carnegie Hall Set for Tonight

Excerpts from Yunus Emre (1946), an oratorio composed by Ahmed Adnan Saygun, the most important Turkish classical music composer of the twentieth century, will be performed at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall at 8 PM tonight, October 17, 2015 as part of MidAtlantic Opera and Seton Hall University's co-production entitled A Prayer for Peace. This rarely-heard piece will be sung in Turkish by the 100-voice Seton Hall University choir.

Ticket prices range from $10 - $90. Order tickets online at www.carnegiehall.org, by phone at CarnegieCharge (212-247-7800) or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th Street and 7th Avenue in New York City. Student and senior discounts are available at the box office only. Group ticket discounting is available to your organization by calling 212-903-9705 Monday-Friday, 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM or Online at groupsales@carnegiehall.org

The MidAtlantic Opera Chorus and Orchestra and Seton Hall University Choir will be conducted by Jason C. Tramm. Soloists include: cellist Mihai Miraca; soprano Rochelle Bard; mezzo-soprano Sara Murphy; countertenor Ray Chenez; tenor Theodore Chletsos; and bass-baritone Kevin Short. Works by Behzad Ranjbaran, Leonard Bernstein, and Ralph Vaughan Williams will also be performed.

Ahmed Adnan Saygun (1907-1991) is widely considered the most important Turkish composer of the 20th century. Along with composers Hasan Ferid Alnar, Cemal Re?it Rey, Necil Kazim Akses, and Ulvi Cemal Erkin, he was dubbed one of the Turkish Five, pioneers of Western classical music in Turkey. After teaching music in elementary schools for several years, Saygun left for musical studies in Paris in 1928, where he studied with Vincent d'Indy, among others. After his return to Turkey he became music director of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Prime Ministry as well as assuming various university and conservatory teaching positions. In 1936 he went to Anatolia with Béla Bartók to collect, record, annotate, and transcribe local folk music. The interest in folk music and its origins remained with him throughout his life.

His first composition to gain him an international reputation was the oratorio Yunus Emre, a full-length work for four soloists, chorus and large orchestra which is a humanistic representation of the eponymous thirteenth century Sufi mystic and poet, scored for four vocal soloists, mixed chorus and orchestra. After the work's premiere in Ankara in 1946, the year of its composition, it was presented in Paris in 1947 and at the United Nations in New York in 1958 under the direction of Leopold Stokowski and continues to be heard occasionally throughout the rest of the world, including recent performances at the Concertgebouw in the Netherlands and at Strathmore in Maryland. Musically the work is representative of the aesthetic of the Turkish Five: embracing of Western traditions and forms, which are integrated with use of national sources, from modes to melismatic figurations. For the Prayer for Peace concert, the performing forces will assay the first, third and final movements of the oratorio using the original Turkish text.

Saygun's other large-scale compositions include five symphonies and five operas. Recent recordings, particularly those on the CPO label of his symphonies, concerti and chamber music, have brought his music to a wider audience.

Yunus Emre's poetry forms the backbone of Turkish culture. He is one of the first known poets to have composed in the spoken Turkish of his era, rather than in Arabic or Persian. Though his actual life is shrouded in mystery, he is the subject of countless myths and legends. His brand of Sufism is suffused with humanist concerns, particularly for social justice. He is memorialized on the 200-lira Turkish banknote and in numerous statues and memorials throughout Turkey, as well as a fountain in Vienna and mosques in Belgium and Germany.

About A Prayer for Peace

Leonard Bernstein eloquently stated, "This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." In response to current world violence and inspired by Bernstein's mandate, Maestro Jason C. Tramm has fashioned a concert performance designed to underscore humanity's universal connection through music.

A Prayer for Peace will feature classical music selections from composers of Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths whose music transcends its individual context and gives voice to the composers' visions of peace in response to conflict and violence. The program includes the Elegy for cello and strings by Behzad Ranjbaran, selections from Ahmed Adnan Saygun's rarely performed Yanus Emre oratorio, Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Ralph Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem. Each composition expresses a universally resonant message, possessing the power to transcend time and place, uniting audiences in "A Prayer for Peace."

A Prayer for Peace is the third in a series of Peace Trilogy Concerts presented by Dr. Tramm during the 2015-16 season. The first and second concerts in the trilogy, Prince of Peace and Grace and Peace took place on July 12th and August 23rd in the Great Auditorium at Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. Tramm has fashioned a trilogy of concert performances designed to underscore humanity's universal connection through music.

Behzad Ranjbaran, born in Tehran in 1955, is known particularly for his orchestral and chamber compositions. His works have been recorded on the Naxos, Delos, Albany, and Cala labels. Based in the U.S., he is a long-standing member of the Juilliard School faculty and is also Composer-in-Residence at Saratoga Performing Arts Center and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His Elegy for solo cello and strings is a transcription of the lyrical second movement of his Cello Concerto (1998). The sinuous melodic line of the principal theme is strongly influenced by the melismatic figuration common to Persian vocal music.

Leonard Bernstein composed his Chichester Psalms for the Chichester Cathedral's 1965 music festival during a sabbatical year from his duties as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Each of the three movements uses a pair of psalm texts set in the original Hebrew. The second movement, which includes a setting of the 23rd Psalm for countertenor solo, uses material from a musical version of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth (which was never completed), with a violent contrasting middle section for men's chorus comprised of excised material originally composed for the Jets in West Side Story.

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed Dona Nobis Pacem in 1936, as Europe veered toward World War II, for the centenary of the Huddersfield Choral Society. The oratorio is scored for large orchestra and chorus with soprano and baritone soloists, and uses settings of texts from the Latin liturgy as well as three poems by Walt Whitman and an anti-war speech given in the British Parliament by the 19th century Quaker orator John Bright. One of the Whitman movements is a setting of the "Dirge for Two Veterans," originally composed in 1911, on the brink of the previous World War.

Jason C. Tramm's work in the symphonic, operatic, and choral repertoire has been acclaimed both nationally and internationally. He is currently Artistic Director of the MidAtlantic Opera, Director of Choral Activities at Seton Hall University, and Director of Music Ministries at Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. From 2008-2012 he served as Artistic Director of the New Jersey State Opera, where his tenure included a celebrated performance of Porgy and Bess at Newark's Symphony Hall. He was recently appointed Artistic Director of the NJ-based Adelphi Orchestra.

In 2003, Jason joined the ranks of Metropolitan Opera stars Renée Fleming and Stephanie Blythe when he was honored with the Rising Star Award from the SUNY Potsdam Alumni Association. A frequent guest conductor, Tramm has led operatic and symphonic performances, and made recordings, in Italy, Romania, Albania, and Hungary. This concert, the third in his Peace Trilogy series, continues his commitment to building bridges and uniting people of all ages, cultures, races, socioeconomic standing and beliefs through the universal language and power of music.

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