Choral Society To Celebrate 70th Season
The Choral Society of the Hamptons will inaugurate its 70th anniversary season on Sunday at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church with performances at 3 and 5:30 p.m. Ottorino Respighi’s “Laud to the Nativity” will be the centerpiece of the program, which will also include shorter selections, among them medieval English carols, a Venetian polychoral work by Gabrieli, and Christmas music by composers including Vulpius and Praetorius.
Created between 1928 and 1930 by the Italian composer and musicologist best known for his Roman orchestral tone poems, “Laud to the Nativity” blends musical styles both antiquated and modern to render the sentiment of the Nativity story. Respighi was a scholar of Italian music from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, but he reached even further into the past for this piece, which is set to a medieval Italian pastoral text from the 13th century.
Heather MacLaughlin, a conductor and musicologist, has referred to the influence of Baroque opera, madrigals, church modes, and Gregorian chant on “Laud to the Nativity.” She also noted that the participation of a small chamber ensemble gives a sense of pastoral, even archaic, simplicity to the work. The piece was scored for chorus, three soloists, and a wind sextet. Its conclusion adds the modern sounds of piano four hand, triangle, and rich vocal harmony.
The title of the Christmas program, “A Rose in Winter,” refers to a “medieval expression for the Nativity and, in modern times, an evocation of humanity’s persistent capacity for hope,” according to a Choral Society press release.
The society’s music director, Mark Mangini, will conduct the concert, which will include two soloists from previous programs, Cherry Duke, a mezzo-soprano, and Nils Neubert, a tenor, Mizuho Takeshita, a soprano, and the South Fork Chamber Ensemble.
Mr. Mangini has been one of New York City’s most active choral conductors for over 30 years and is a founder and music director of the Greenwich Village Chamber Singers. His repertoire ranges from the pre-Bach era, with historical instruments, to commissions of contemporary work.
Ms. Duke is a frequent soloist with opera companies throughout the United States, among them the Fort Worth Opera, Opera Tampa, the Indiana Repertory Theatre, and the Los Angeles Opera.
Mr. Neubert also performs widely in the U.S. and abroad and is a sought-after interpreter of lieder and the works of Bach, Mozart, Handel, Hayden, Mendelssohn, Rossini, and Donizetti. He is also a chamber musician.
New to the choral society is Ms. Takeshita, a versatile performer of opera and oratorio, early and contemporary music, with a repertoire including Susanna in “Le Nozze di Figaro,” Despina in “Cosi Fan Tutte,” Gilda in Rigoletto, and Tytania in “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Tickets to individual concerts are $30 in advance and $35 at the door, $10 and $15 for youth. Preferred seats are available for $75, and season subscriptions can be had at discounted prices.
Prior to the 3 p.m. performance, the society will hold a benefit brunch at the Bridgehampton Inn and Restaurant at 12:30. Brunch tickets, which are $225, will include preferred seating at the concert.
Looking ahead, the society will perform Fauré’s “Requiem” and Bach’s Cantata No. 4, “Christ Lay in Death’s Bonds,” on March 20 at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. Next summer the society will present Beethoven’s Mass in C and the world premiere of a major work by Victoria Bond, based on the biblical story of Moses and commissioned by the society.
An auditioned chorus with a professional music director, soloists, orchestra, and accompanist, the Choral Society of the Hamptons has been presenting choral music on the East End since it was founded in 1946 by Charlotte Rogers Smith, a local choir director.