American Classical Orchestra to Open Season With Haydn's LORD NELSON Mass
Soprano Shelén Hughes Camacho makes her ACO debut under founder and artistic director Thomas Crawford.
The American Classical Orchestra (ACO) begins its 42nd season with a concert led by Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford on September 17 at Alice Tully Hall.
New York City's leading period instrument orchestra provides a rare opportunity for audiences to hear masterworks on such original instruments as valveless horns, gut strings, and wooden flutes.
The opening program presents Haydn's "Lord Nelson" Mass in D minor with award-winning soprano Shelén Hughes Camacho in her ACO debut, along with Beethoven's Symphony No. 1—the first of three Alice Tully Hall Celebrate Beethoven! concerts during 2026-27, continuing the Orchestra's performance cycle of all nine symphonies begun last season to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death.
The ACO will next appear in a salon concert of chamber music by Mozart and Haydn on October 21 at Columbus Citizens Club, 8 East 69th St.
“As we continue our Beethoven symphonies cycle this season, pairing his First Symphony with Haydn's Mass for Troubled Times reveals two masters responding to the anxiety and drama of a changing world with equal defiance,” said Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford. “Performing these works on period instruments isn't a history lesson—it delivers the warm and visceral sound of the moment directly to our audience."
Celebrate Beethoven!: Turning the Key
Thursday, September 17, 2026, at 7:30 PM
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
American Classical Orchestra
ACO Chorus
Thomas Crawford, conductor
Shelén Hughes Camacho, soprano
Franz Joseph Haydn: “Lord Nelson” Mass in D minor, Hob. XXII:11
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Haydn wrote this famous choral work in 1798 with the title Missa in Angustiis, or "Mass for Troubled Times,” as Napoleon's forces were threatening much of Europe, including the composer's native Austria. In honor of British Admiral Horatio Nelson's defeat of Napoleon that year in the Battle of the Nile, the mass eventually took on its more familiar nickname “Lord Nelson.” The performance spotlights the young Bolivian soprano Shelén Hughes Camacho, a winner of the 2025 George and Nora London Foundation Competition, in her ACO debut. Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 marks the beginning of a new musical path with sudden harmonic shifts and the use of sforzandi accents. ACO's performances of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Symphonies in 2026-27 offer NYC's only opportunity to hear these works this season on period instruments, as Beethoven intended for his first audiences.
Tickets: Priced at $35, $55 & $75, are available at aconyc.org; by calling ACO at (212) 362-2727, ext.4; or by visiting lincolncenter.org or calling CenterCharge at 212.721.6500.
About Thomas Crawford
The American Classical Orchestra's Artistic Director and Founder Thomas Crawford is a champion of historically informed performance styles in Baroque, Classical, and Early Romantic music. In Connecticut, he founded 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, 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, which premiered at the American Guild of Organists. A passionate activist determined to bring the beauty of period music to a wider audience, Mr. Crawford received a Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth award from the National Endowment for the Arts, in recognition of 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 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 in 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.
