Oratorio Society Of New York Concludes Its Expanded Carnegie Hall Season With Verdi's Requiem

The Oratorio Society will conclude its 2018-19 Carnegie Hall season, which was expanded to four concerts from previous years' three, with Verdi's thrillingly dramatic Requiem, which premiered in Milan in 1874 and has since become one of the most-performed works in the symphonic choral canon. OSNY Music Director Kent Tritle leads the performance, which features the soloists Elizabeth de Trejo, soprano; Raehann Bryce-Davis, mezzo-soprano; Joshua Blue, tenor; and Adam Lau, bass, on Thursday, May 9, 2019, at 8:00 pm.

Soprano Elizabeth de Trejo makes her OSNY debut with this appearance, her second collaboration with Kent Tritle, who worked with her at the Great Mountains Music Festival in PyeongChang, South Korea, in 2016. Mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis returns to the OSNY, having sung in the world premiere of the Paul Moravec/Mark Campbell oratorio Sanctuary Road last season. Tenor Joshua Blue was also a soloist in Sanctuary Road, and was the first prize winner of the OSNY's 2017 Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition. Bass Adam Lau was soloist for the Society's Messiah performance in 2016 and Mahler's Symphony No. 8 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 2015.

Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition Finals Concert April 6, 2019

On April 6, the Oratorio Society will hold the finals of its annual Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition, which remains the only major competition to focus exclusively on oratorio singing, in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Each of the eight finalists will perform two works in concert before a panel of distinguished judges, and prizes are announced immediately after the judges' deliberations.

OSNY Music Director since the 2005-06 season, Kent Tritle is also Music Director of the professional chorus Musica Sacra, and Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where he directs the concert series Great Music in a Great Space. Tritle is Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music and a member of the graduate faculty of the Juilliard School. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is the organist of the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra. www.kenttritle.com

Elizabeth de Trejo also appears at Carnegie Hall in May with the Orchestra Now, in the U.S. premiere of Joachim Raff's De Profundis and the De Profundis of Lili Boulanger. Last season, Elizabeth returned to the PyeongChang Music Festival in South Korea as a featured soloist with the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Zaurbek Gugkaev, and performed a program of Rachmaninoff songs with pianist Norman Krieger. Ms. De Trejo also returned to Lincoln Center as soprano soloist in Mozart's Vespers and Requiem with the National Chorale. www.elizabethdetrejo.com

Raehann Bryce-Davis, hailed by the New York Times as a "striking mezzo soprano" and by the San Francisco Chronicle for her "electrifying sense of fearlessness," is a recipient of the 2018 George London Award. Her season includes returns to Opera Vlaanderen for a role debut of Ms. Alexander in Satyagraha and a world tour of Unknown, I Live With You. She also sings Kristina in The Makropulos Affair at the Jan ek Brno Festival, and makes her role debut as Leonora in La Favorita with Teatro Massimo Palermo. Last season included her first performances of Wellgunde in Die Ring-Trilogie with Theater an der Wien, Madeline Mitchell in Three Decembers with Opera Maine, and Elgar's Sea Pictures at the Musikverein in Vienna. www.guybarzilayartists.com/Raehann-Bryce-Davis

British-American tenor and Toulmin Foundation Scholar Joshua Blue, from Haywards Heath, U.K., is a Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist with the Washington National Opera. As an artist with WNO, Blue recently made his Kennedy Center main stage debut as Alfredo Germont in Verdi's La Traviata (Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Performance). Throughout the WNO season, Blue performs as Hippo/Holy Man/Dog/Water Seller in Tesori's The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me; David in Benavides's Pepito, as part of the American Opera Initiative Festival; and Monsieur Triquet in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. This summer, Blue joins Wolf Trap Opera as a Filene Artist, singing the role of Harlekin in Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis. www.joshuabluetenor.com

Adam Lau, called a superb bass by Opera News, continues a busy and active career with multiple operatic and concert dates. Last season, he appeared with Wexford Festival Opera as Creon in Medea; as Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Kentucky Opera; and as the Old Hebrew in Samson et Dalila with North Carolina Opera. Recent concert appearances have included the Mozart Requiem with the San Diego Symphony; Haydn's Creation with Symphony Silicon Valley; and Handel's Messiah with Musica Sacra at Carnegie Hall. www.adampaullau.com

Since its founding in 1873, the Oratorio Society of New York, New York's 200-voice avocational chorus, has become the city's standard for grand choral performance, having performed world, U.S., and New York premieres of works as diverse as Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem (1877), Berlioz's Rom o et Juliette (1882), a full-concert production of Wagner's Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera House (1886), Britten's The World of the Spirit (1998), Filas's Song of Solomon (2012), Moravec's The Blizzard Voices (2013), and, in 2018, the Paul Moravec/Mark Campbell oratorio Sanctuary Road, and Behzad Ranjbaran's We Are One in their world premiere performances. On its 100th anniversary the Oratorio Society received the Handel Medallion, New York City's highest cultural award, in recognition of its contributions. www.oratoriosocietyofny.org

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