New York, NY – Concerts at Saint Thomas continues its decades long New York City holiday tradition of performing Handel’s Messiah at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue at West 53rd Street on December 5 & 7 at 7:30pm. Daniel Hyde conducts the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys in their ongoing partnership with New York Baroque Incorporated, along with soloists Ellie Dehn, Clare McNamara, Lawrence Jones, and Jesse Blumberg. Hailed by The New York Times as “king among the innumerable [Messiah] performances in New York,” it is the only Messiah in the city performed with men and boys’ choir, and is considered by many to be the start of the Christmas Season.
On Thursday, December 14 at 5:30pm, Britten’s transcendent and ethereal A Ceremony of Carols provides a meditative respite from the hustle and bustle of the Christmas Season. Daniel Hyde conducts the Boys of the Saint Thomas Choir along with award-winning harpist Bridget Kibbey. The piece, written for harp and boys’ choir, unifies the various carols of the Christmas story with a blend of starkness and shivering beauty. The program will also feature works for choir and harp by Ireland and Hadley, as well as pieces for solo harp by Bach, Britten, and Agócs.
LISTING INFORMATION
DECEMBER 5 & 7, 2017 | TUESDAY & THURSDAY at 7:30 pm
Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue at West 53rd Street
HANDEL: Messiah
The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, with New York Baroque Incorporated
Ellie Dehn, soprano
Clare McNamara, mezzo-soprano
Lawrence Jones, tenor
Jesse Blumberg, bass
Daniel Hyde, conductor
TICKETS REQUIRED
DECEMBER 14, 2017 | THURSDAY at 5:30 pm
Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue at West 53rd Street
BACH: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 (solo harp)
IRELAND: The holy boy (choir and harp)
BRITTEN: Suite for Harp, Op. 83 (solo harp)
HADLEY: I sing of a maiden (choir and harp)
AGÓCS: Love is come again (solo harp)
BRITTEN: A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 (choir and harp)
The Boys of the Saint Thomas Choir
Bridget Kibbey, harp
Daniel Hyde, conductor
TICKETS REQUIRED
TICKET INFORMATION
All concerts take place at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue at West 53rd Street.
Tickets may be purchased at www.SaintThomasChurch.org/music/concerts, by calling the Concerts Office at (212) 664-9360, by email at [email protected] or in person at the Concerts Office at One West 53rd Street at Fifth Avenue (enter through the Parish House).
ABOUT BRIDGET KIBBEY
According to the New York Times, harpist Bridget Kibbey “…made it seem as though her instrument had been waiting all its life to explode with the gorgeous colors and energetic figures she was getting from it.” In demand as a soloist and chamber musician alongside today’s top artists, harpist Bridget Kibbey is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist Award, a Salon de Virtuosi Grant, the only harpist to win a position with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society II, a winner of Concert Artist Guild’s International Competition, Astral Artist Auditions, and Premiere Prix at the Journées de les Harpes Competition in Arles, France.
Ms. Kibbey’s solo performances have been broadcast on NPR’s Performance Today, on New York’s WQXR and Q2 Radio, WNYC’s Soundcheck, WETA’s Front Row Washington, WRTI’s Crossover, and A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts. She has toured and recorded with Dawn Upshaw and Placido Domingo for SONY Records and Deutsche Grammaphon; and, her own solo debut album, Love is Come Again, was named one of the Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York. Bridget is featured annually with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Knights Chamber Orchestra, and Camerata Pacifica. She has appeared as featured soloist and chamber artist at the Bravo!Vail, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton, Aspen, Bay Chamber, Pelotas, Savannah Music Festival, Music@Menlo Festivals, among others.
With a passion for expanding the scope and platform of the harp, Bridget spearheads and tours cross-genre collaborations that reignite an ancient instrument. This season Bridget presents J.S. Bach’s most iconic keyboard works adapted on the harp alongside the Sebastians, “New York’s leading early music ensemble (New York Times).” She travels across the country with a special appearance at the Colombian Embassy with Chalaca, a new trio exploring the cross-pollination of folk music in South America, alongside Colombian clarinetist Benito Meza, and percussionist Samuel Torres. Bridget recently spear-headed a five orchestra concerto-commissioning consortium with Juno-Award winning composer Vivian Fung. Bridget performed five world-premiere performances with The Karlsruhe Badische Symphoniker (Germany), The Phillips Camerata in Washington, DC, The Alabama Symphony, The San José Chamber Orchestra, and the Metropolis Ensemble. This season Bridget announces a new concerto consortium, with participating orchestras launching performance in 2019/2020, featuring a new harp concerto by Brazilian-born João Luiz Rezende. Bridget maintains harp studios at Bard Conservatory, The Juilliard School Pre-College Program, and The Curtis Young Artist Institute.
ABOUT DANIEL HYDE
Born in the UK, Daniel Hyde began his education as a chorister at Durham Cathedral and later continued his studies at Oakham School. While at school he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the age of 17, and won the organ scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge. During his time at Cambridge University, he served under Dr. Stephen Cleobury, performed worldwide with the renowned King’s College Choir and studied the organ with Dame Gillian Weir and Nicolas Kynaston. Upon graduation with First Class Honours in Music, he was appointed as Director of Music at Jesus College, Cambridge, serving five very happy years developing the College’s music program consisting of a choir of men and boys and a mixed-voiced choir. From 2009 until 2016, he held the post of Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was also an Associate Professor in the University’s Faculty of Music. In September 2016 he took up the post of Organist and Director of Music at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, New York.
Alongside his roles in Oxford and Cambridge, Daniel is in increasing demand as a choral and orchestral conductor, and has worked with the London Bach Choir, the Britten Sinfonia, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the City of London Sinfonia. Daniel’s broad-ranging discography can be found on the Opus Arte, Linn, Naxos and EMI labels.
As an organist, Daniel has performed across the UK and the world. Recital engagements have taken him to the USA, Vienna, Finland, Germany, Holland and also Australia, where he has performed at all the major venues including the Sydney Opera House and Adelaide Town Hall. He has been a concerto soloist with the BBC Philharmonic, and with the Britten Sinfonia he has performed the Poulenc Concerto a number of times, and has recorded the Hindemith Concerto to great critical acclaim. He was awarded Second Prize and the Audience Prize in the Royal College of Organists Performer of the Year 2002 competition. A regular accompanist to the BBC Singers on Radio Three, he has appeared at the BBC Proms on numerous occasions, and he made his solo debut there in 2010, performing Bach’s Canonic Variations at the organ of the Royal Albert Hall. In the 2014/15 season, he performed the complete organ works of J S Bach on the new Dobson organ in Merton College, Oxford. As an ensemble player he has appeared with Phantasm, the Britten Sinfonia, Aurora Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields amongst others.
www.danielhyde.co.uk
ABOUT THE SAINT THOMAS CHOIR OF MEN AND BOYS
The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys is considered by many to be the leading ensemble of its kind in the Anglican choral tradition in the United States. The Choir performs regularly with Orchestra of St. Luke’s as part of its own concert series. Its primary raison d’être is to provide music for five choral services each week. Live webcasts of all choral services and further information concerning recordings, tours and concerts given by the Choir may be found at www.SaintThomasChurch.org
Alongside its choral services and concert series spanning the past four decades, the Choir has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe with performances at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, King’s College, Cambridge, Windsor, Edinburgh, St. Albans, the Aldeburgh Festival and the Vatican. In February 2012, the Boys of the Choir traveled to Dresden to give the premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Dresden Requiem with the Dresden Staatskapelle in the Frauenkirche and Semper Oper. Later in 2012, the Choir was invited to perform in the Thomaskirche at the Leipzig BachFest, a highlight of their June 2012 tour to Germany and Copenhagen. Domestically, the Choir most recently toured the Southeastern United States and was a featured performer at the National AGO Convention in Houston, Texas.
In addition to the annual performances of Handel’s Messiah, concerts at Saint Thomas Church have included Requiems by Fauré, Brahms, Mozart, Duruflé, Victoria and Howells; J.S. Bach’s two Passions, Mass in B Minor and Motets; the lesser-known St. John Passion of C.P.E. Bach; the U.S. premiere of John Tavener’s Mass; the U.S. premiere of Nico Muhly’s work My Days with viol consort Fretwork; Handel’s Israel in Egypt; a program of Handel and Purcell’s baroque masters conducted by John Scott and Richard Egarr along with Juilliard 415 and MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross, conducted by David Hill. In 2014, the Boy Choristers performed in Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion at the Park Avenue Armory as part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival with the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Peter Sellars and conductor Sir Simon Rattle. In September 2016, a special concert in memorial of John Scott was performed with Orchestra of St. Luke’s under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle.
The Gentlemen of the Saint Thomas Choir are professional singers; the Boy Choristers attend the Saint Thomas Choir School. The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys is represented by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc. (www.concertorganists.com) and records exclusively for Resonus Classics (www.resonusclassics.com)
ABOUT THE SAINT THOMAS CHOIR SCHOOL
Founded in 1919, the Saint Thomas Choir School is the only boarding school solely for choristers in the United States, and one of only three schools of its type remaining in the world today. The Choir School offers a challenging pre-preparatory curriculum, interscholastic sports and musical training for boys in grades three through eight. Following graduation, boys move on to highly competitive independent boarding and day schools across the country.
The Saint Thomas Choir School is committed to training and educating talented musicians without regard to religious, economic, or social background. Generous financial aid is available to all successful applicants. Inquiries from interested families are sought throughout the year.
Do you know a boy who loves to sing? We want to hear from you at [email protected]. To learn more about the exceptional opportunity provided by a Choir School education, consult our website: www.choirschool.org.
ABOUT NEW YORK BAROQUE INCORPORATED
Hailed as “truly excellent” and “studded with stars in the making” (New York Times), New York Baroque Incorporated (NYBI) is a conductorless orchestra of period instruments in New York City, bringing vital, informed, and fresh performances of a wide range of 17th and 18th-century repertoire, as well as creating a vibrant landscape for collaborations between historical performance and living composers. NYBI has collaborated with renowned soloists including Richard Egarr, Vivica Genaux, Monica Huggett, and has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Spoleto Festival USA. Striving to make period instruments a living art form, NYBI has premiered works by Nico Muhly, Hollis Taylor, and Huang Ruo. The orchestra also dedicates itself to bring to life unknown works of the Baroque, and has revived and presented modern-day premieres of Cavalli’s Veremonda (1652), Aliotti’s Santa Rosalia (1687) and Seckendorff’s Proserpina (1777).
NYBI’s 2017-18 season highlights include Handel’s Messiah with The Saint Thomas Choir, a program of French dance music with baroque violist Robert Mealy at the Met Museum, and an American premiere of “M Stabat Mater” with Inbal Oshman Dance Group presented by Peak Performances. For information, visit www.NYBaroque.org.
