Classical Music | Metropolitan Opera tenor, Grammy-nominated choir and orchestra perform Bernstein and more

Grammy-nominated choir of Trinity Wall Street; NOVUS NY, orchestra; Julian Wachner, conductor; John McVeigh, Metropolitan Opera tenor; Stephen Salters, baritone.

Program
Copland (1900-1990)/ Bernstein (1918-1990) El Salon Mexico (1936)
Mahler (1860-1911) Das Lied von der Erde (1909)
Snider Mass for the Endangered (World Premiere)

About the Performers
Grammy-nominated interpreters of both early and new music, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street has changed the realm of 21st-century vocal music, breaking new ground with an artistry described as “blazing with vigour…a choir from heaven” (The Times). The ensemle has been described as “thrilling” (New Yorker), “musically top-notch” (Wall Street Journal), and “simply superb” (New York Times).

Metropolitan Opera tenor John McVeigh has appeared at the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and many more venues.

NOVUS NY is Trinity Church Wall Street’s contemporary music orchestra, under the leadership of Trinity’s Director of Music, Julian Wachner. Hailed by the New Yorker as “expert and versatile musicians,” its members perform new music from all corners of the repertoire, meeting “every challenge with an impressive combination of discipline and imagination” (New York Classical Review).

Music director Julian Wachner has been variously described as “jazzy, energetic, and ingenious,” (Boston Globe), having “splendor, dignity, outstanding tone combinations, sophisticated chromatic exploration…a rich backdrop, wavering between a glimmer and a tingle...,” (La Scena Musicale) being “a compendium of surprises,” (Washington Post) and as “bold and atmospheric,” while having “an imaginative flair for allusive text setting,” and noted for “the silken complexities of his harmonies” (New York Times). He has made guest appearances with such major organizations as the San Francisco, New York City, and Glimmerglass Opera, the New York and Hong Kong Philharmonic and many more.

Baritone Stephen Salters has been described by The New York Times as “…a man of thorough confidence, huge charm, and a vocal allure that come brimming off the stage…an ability to communicate gentleness and power with the same immediacy”.

About the Program
El Salón México is a symphonic composition by Aaron Copland, which uses Mexican folk music extensively. Leonard Bernstein and Copland himself conducted recordings of the work. Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra performed the music in a broadcast concert on March 14, 1942.

Das Lied von der Erde (English: The Song of the Earth) is a composition for two voices and orchestra written by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Mahler composed this work following the most painful period in his life, and the songs address themes such as those of living, parting and salvation. On the centenary of Mahler's birth, the composer and prominent Mahler conductor Leonard Bernstein described Das Lied von der Erde as Mahler's "greatest symphony".

Snider's Mass for the Endangered elegizes species on the brink of extinction, as a 'requiem for the not-yet-gone'. The Mass was commissioned by Trinity Wall Street, under the auspices of their Mass Reimaginings initiative.