Chorus pro Musica's 62nd Season includes Dvor‡k, Janacek, Rossini, and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms

    BOSTON, MA, September 12, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Chorus pro Musica, under the leadership of Music Director Betsy Burleigh, begins its 62nd concert season on Sunday, November 7, 2010 with works by two modern Bohemian masters, Antonin Dvorak and Leos Janacek. The season continues with the chorus's popular holiday celebration on Friday, December 17 and a performance of Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle on Sunday, March 20, 2011, and concludes with a program of psalm settings highlighted by Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms on Sunday, June 5, 2011, together with the New England Philharmonic, at NEC's Jordan Hall.

The season begins on Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 3pm at Old South Church with Antonin Dvorak's Mass in D and Leos Janacek's Our Father. Dvorak wrote his Mass in D in 1887 for the consecration of a new chapel belonging to Josef Hlavka, a friend and founder of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Art. At the time, Dvorak was world-famous for large-scale choral works, including Stabat Mater, The Spectre's Bride and St. Ludmilla, but the Mass is on a more intimate scale, scored for four soloists, choir, and a simple but ingenious organ accompaniment. Dvorak called it a work of "faith, hope and love to Almighty God." He wrote, "Do not wonder that I am so religious, but an artist who is not could not accomplish anything like this." Dvorak's countryman Leos Janacek also drew on Moravian and Slavic roots to create music of great power. Our Father, composed in 1901 and scored for organ, harp, chorus and tenor solo, is one of his great religious compositions (another being the monumental Glagolitic Mass).

Concert tickets for the November 7 performance at Old South Church [Copley Square, 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116] are $25, $35 and $45, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. Reserved seats may be selected and tickets purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276). For wheelchair-accessible seats, call 617-267-7442.

The chorus's traditional Holiday Celebration is held Friday, December 17, 2010 at 8Êpm also at Old South Church. The concert again features the Triton Brass Quintet, artist-in-residence at The Boston Conservatory and chamber music faculty at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. The celebration also includes the annual holiday traditions of a candlelight processional and carol singing with the audience. Regular-price tickets for the Holiday concert are $25, $35 and $45.

The chorus presents Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 3pm at Old South Church. The Mass, completed just five years before his death in 1868, was Rossini's last major work, after a period of over 30 years during which he published no new music except his Stabat mater. Rossini called it 'the last of my sins of old age.' It created an immediate sensation, notwithstanding the comment, attributed to Napoleon III, that the work was neither petite, nor solemn, nor particularly liturgical. Like all of Rossini's music, it is melodic, spirited, and irresistibly engaging. 'Petite' only in instrumental accompaniment two pianos and harmonium the Mass includes exquisite writing for four soloists and chorus that makes it a fitting climax to the life of the man considered the greatest Italian composer of his time. Regular-price tickets for the March 20 concert are $25, $40 and $50.

The season concludes on Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 3pm at NEC's Jordan Hall [30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA 02115] with a celebration of psalms, including Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, performed together with the New England Philharmonic. The Symphony of Psalms, simultaneously majestic and passionate, remains one of Stravinsky's most popular works. More psalm setting than a traditional symphony, the work gives equal prominence to voices and instruments. The unique orchestration omits the violins and violas but includes two pianos and harp, making the sound more archaic and rhythmically potent. The Symphony of Psalms reflects a renewal of faith by Stravinsky, who had recently rejoined the Russian Orthodox Church. Consisting of Latin texts from three psalms, it inexorably builds to a climax of timeless, beatific joy. The work was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and completed in 1930. Chorus pro Musica first sang it in 1959 with the BSO under the direction of Robert Shaw, but has not performed it for many years. Regular-price tickets for the June 5 concert are $27, $42 and $57; the price includes a $2 restoration fee for Jordan Hall.

Subscriptions are available for all four concerts or for any combination of three concerts, at 10% off single-ticket prices, and may be purchased at www.choruspromusica.org, or by phone (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) at 800-658-4CPM (800-658-4276).

Chorus pro Musica is a distinguished, independent Boston-based chorus recognized for versatility and excellence in performing traditional, adventurous and seldom-heard works. The chorus was founded in 1949 by the late Alfred Nash Patterson and quickly built a superb reputation for its professional-level musical standards and innovative programming. These strengths have led to collaborations with such organizations as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra as well as with opera companies including the Opera Company of Boston and Commonwealth Opera.

Betsy Burleigh, in her second season as Music Director, has been since 2005 the Music Director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, a renowned 115-voice chorus founded in 1908 that is the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's chorus of choice. Dr. Burleigh has conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony, Opera Cleveland, the Akron Symphony, and the Canton Symphony Orchestras. She led the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus on an Emmy award-winning benefit concert for the 9/11 Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, and received the Northern Ohio Live Achievement Award for music direction of Viktor Ullman's opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis with Cleveland Public Theater. In February 2009 she conducted the Mendelssohn Chamber Chorus on the Library of Congress concert series in Washington, D.C. She holds a doctorate in choral conducting from Indiana University and a masters degree from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Sue Auclair Promotions is a public relations and marketing firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, contact us at 617-522-1394.

# # #