PHILADELPHIA, PA - The Philadelphia Singers, Philadelphia's premier professional chorus, announces a three-concert 2011/2012 subscription season featuring classical and contemporary masterworks. Season highlights include the Philadelphia premiere of Hiob by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Randall Thompson's a cappella tour-de-force, Requiem. Subscriptions will go on sale August 1, 2011 and can be purchased by calling 215-751-9494 or by visiting philadelphiasingers.org.
The 2011/2012 season opens on Saturday, October 29 at 8 PM at Philadelphia's Church of the Holy Trinity on 19th and Rittenhouse Square. This concert will take the audience on a musical journey exploring the significant influence that J .S. Bach had on Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn's compositional styles, beginning with Bach's Magnificat in D major and concluding with Felix Mendelssohn's rarely performed Magnificat in D major, which he composed at age thirteen. The concert will also feature the Philadelphia premiere of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's Hiob. Constrained by the social values and the limitations on women, Mendelssohn's older sister Fanny found an outlet for her talents only in private, leaving her works essentially unknown. Additionally, The Singers will present a conversation with George Stauffer, a leading Bach scholar and Dean of Rutgers' Mason Gross School of the Arts, and R. Larry Todd, a premier Mendelssohn scholar and professor of Music at Duke University, discussing the interconnections between Bach and the Mendelssohns.
The season will continue in December with Philadelphia's beloved annual tradition, "Christmas with The Philadelphia Singers." This concert will be presented at Philadelphia's St. Clement's Church on 20th and Cherry Streets in the Logan Square neighborhood of Philadelphia on December 10 and 17 at 5 PM. An additional concert will be presented on the Main Line at the Church of the Good Samaritan, 212 W. Lancaster Avenue in Paoli, PA, on December 11 at 4 PM. This concert will feature organist Peter Conte in William Mathias' Ave Rex, written in 1969 and scored for chorus and organ, framed by a stirring candlelight processional and a glorious audience carol sing. The 2011/2012 season will conclude on May 5, 2012, at 8 PM at the Church of the Holy Trinity on 19th and Rittenhouse Square with Randall Thompson's concert-length Requiem, an eighty-minute a cappella tour-de-force. Thompson's Requiem stands as a unique work in the American choral canon. Composed in 1958, it is one of a small number of large-scale choral works that Thompson produced from the late 1950's to the early 1960's and is distinguished by being the only one of these works that is purely a cappella. |
