Boston's Chorus pro Musica Presents: Gioachino Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle

March 10, 2011 - PRLog -- Chorus pro Musica, under the leadership of Music Director Betsy Burleigh, will present a performance of Gioachino Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle featuring lyric coloratura soprano Carole Haber, mezzo-soprano Hillary Nicholson, tenor William Hite and bass Paul Guttry, on Sunday, March 20, 2011, 3:00 PM, at Old South Church [Copley Square, 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116].

Gioachino Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, 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.

Lyric coloratura soprano Carole Haber won the N. Meyer Baker Award and the Eleanor Steber Music Foundation Award at the 1989 Washington International Voice Competition at the Kennedy Center.  She is well known for her interpretations in the Mozartian and Bel Canto styles.  She made her operatic debut as the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute.  Her performances of this role throughout the East Coast have been highly acclaimed by The New York Times, High Fidelity, Opera News and The Boston Globe, among others.  

Mezzo-Soprano Hillary Nicholson has performed leading roles with opera companies and orchestras throughout the United States.  She has appeared as Carmen with the Sacramento Opera, Emilia in Otello with the Tampa Bay Opera, Dame Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff with the Mississippi Opera and the Opera Festival of New Jersey, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with Ocean State Lyric Opera and Ma Moss in Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land with the Skylight Opera Theatre, a performance taped for broadcast on Public Television.
Tenor William Hite has been described by the Boston Globe as “a breathtaking communicator.”  The San Francisco Chronicle remarked that Hite in Purcell's King Arthur “lavished the music with considerable eloquence” and the Wall Street Journal deemed his Apollo in Monteverdi's Orfeo “outstanding.”
Bass-baritone Paul Guttry is a former member of Chanticleer and of the medieval music ensemble Sequentia.  He has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, Handel & Haydn, and Collage New Music and has concertized throughout the United States and internationally with the Boston Camerata, Chanticleer and the Ensemble for Early Music.  He can be heard on recordings on the BMG, Erato, and Koch International labels.

Tickets:

Concert tickets are $25, $40 and $50, 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.

Elegant Dinner & Cocktail Party at St. Botolph Club Following Concert:

The concert will be immediately followed by Chorus pro Musica’s Elegant Dinner and Cocktail Party at the beautiful St. Botolph Club located at 199 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, about 2.5 blocks from Old South Church.  Tickets to the gala dinner will be $500 and will include VIP seating at the concert AND a chance to win “Dinner for Six” prepared by the fabulous chef Joyce Della Chiesa and held at the home of one of the board members of Chorus pro Musica.   In addition to “Dinner for Six,” the winner will receive an invitation to the gala reception held after the June 5 afternoon concert featuring Symphony of Psalms at Jordan Hall.  All funds raised from the dinner and raffle will go toward the support of Chorus pro Musica and its concert season.  Gala dinner tickets can be purchased at www.choruspromusica.org.

The season concludes on Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 3 pm 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.

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.

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