Music of the Exodus — 100 Strong
More than 100 singers and the members of the South Fork Chamber Orchestra will join together on Saturday to perform George Frideric Handel’s well-known Baroque masterpiece “Israel in Egypt” and Cantata 79 by J.S. Bach. The Choral Society of the Hamptons will team up with the Greenwich Village Singers in the performance. Both groups are directed by Mark Mangini, who will conduct. Suzanne Schwing, mezzo-soprano, and Mischa Bouvier, baritone, are known here from previous concerts with the Choral Society. Sara Paar will be the soprano.
Second only to “Messiah” in popularity among Handel’s oratorios, “Israel in Egypt” is based on the Biblical story and dramatizes the struggle for freedom from slavery. The concert will feature those portions of the oratorio that describe the Exodus, as the music evokes drastic events ranging from the seven plagues to the parting of the Red Sea. The society’s president, Daniel McKeever, commented, “This is a universally appealing work that hasn’t been performed here in years. We are thrilled to be presenting it, and think our audience will be, too.”
The concert will take place at 7 p.m. in the Parish Hall of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton. A benefit dinner to follow at the Palm restaurant in East Hampton has been sold out.
Tickets for the concert are $25 in advance, $35 at the door. Youth tickets are available for $10 in advance, and $15 at the door. Preferred-seating tickets are $75. Tickets can be purchased by going to the society’s Web site, choralsocietyofthehamptons.org, or by calling the executive director at 631-204-9402. They also are available at the Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor.