Choral Society All About Brahms
Johannes Brahms will be celebrated by the Choral Society of the Hamptons on March 22 in an early evening concert at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church.
“Brahms in Love” should remind its audience why the composer’s funeral cortege attracted thousands of mourners on the streets of Vienna in 1897. The program will include an arrangement of his well-known “Lullaby,” as well as “Lovesong Waltzes” for chorus and four-hand piano, four songs for women’s chorus, horns, and harp, and four love songs for men’s chorus.
Jennifer Scott Miceli will be the guest conductor for the chorus and four soloists: Marla Waterman-Peltzer, soprano, Barbara Fusco, mezzo-soprano, Max Avery Vitagliano, tenor, and Christopher Judge, baritone. Michael C. Haigler and Arielle Levioff will provide the four-hand piano accompaniment.
Jan Swafford, a biographer of Brahms, has written that the composer’s “music unites magisterial perfection with lyrical warmth, a monumental style with whispering intimacy.” While focusing on the composer’s quieter moments, the program shows him to be “a giant of his time and ours,” said Ms. Miceli.
The guest conductor may be familiar to audiences from two years ago, when she led the society in a program of jazz-influenced works. She is the director of music education and vocal jazz at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, where she also serves as department chair. She is the vice president of the New York State Association of College Music.
The concert will begin at 5 p.m., with a benefit reception to be held at the Palm restaurant, just east of the church on Main Street, following the event. Concert tickets, $30 in advance, can be purchased through the society’s website or at Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor. Tickets will also be available at the door for $35. The reception, which includes wines by Channing Daughters and hors d’oeuvres, costs $100; reservations can be made through the society’s website through next Thursday.
The choral society’s summer concert will focus on Haydn’s “The Creation,” conducted by Mark Mangini, and will be presented on June 27. Joining the society in the parish hall of Most Holy Trinity Church will be the Greenwich Village Chamber Singers.