CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The New York Pops

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 8:00 PM

The New York Pops
Rob Fisher, Conductor
The King's Singers, Guest Artist
Special Guest: Marilyn Horne

A festive program of holiday favorites with The King's Singers.

Program Notes:

The emotions of the holidays have inspired great music through the ages, and this music continues to connect us to all our feelings about the holidays and loved ones. Almost daily, brain science makes new discoveries showing how deep in the brain these musical connections reside: just listen and you know it’s true. Sentimental soul that I am, I look forward to this music every year.

For this program we are pleased to present The King’s Singers performing music that spans many traditions over several centuries. This award-winning a cappella sextet is that rare combination of perfect musicianship and great entertainment, and to hear them in this awesome hall will be sublime. Their choice of holiday music is as timeless as its presentation.

Besides featuring several musicians of the New York Pops family in tonight’s concert, it is a special treat to have Marilyn Horne share her warmth and artistry with us. Marilyn and I met nearly 20 years ago performing holiday music for a Garrison Keillor broadcast; afterward, we discovered we were mutual friends of Skitch Henderson. She is a national treasure and part of the family.

We join all the other members of the New York Pops family in wishing you a joyous holiday season with best wishes for 2009. May the music connect us all.

The New York Pops
Rob Fisher, Conductor
The New York Pops was founded by Skitch Henderson in 1983 to give New York a permanent professional symphonic pops orchestra that would create greater public awareness and appreciation of America’s rich musical heritage. The orchestra is now the largest independent symphonic pops orchestra in the US, enjoying one of the highest subscription renewal rates of any series at Carnegie Hall. The New York Pops’s extensive education programs allow public schoolchildren to participate in numerous concert and music-making experiences: Salute to Music provides free instrumental lessons to more than 100 New York City junior-high school students each year; Kids in the Balcony arranges for hundreds of children to attend concerts by The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall; and other education programs—such as Create a Symphony and Rhythm, Rhyme & Rap—teach skills such as composition, instrument building, percussion performance, and literacy. The New York Pops’s recordings include a recently reissued CD of the orchestra’s 1983 debut performance as well as From Berlin to Bernstein, The New York Pops Goes to the Movies, Christmas in the Country, Magical Moments from Great Musicals, and With A Song in My Heart—the Music of Richard Rodgers with Maureen McGovern. For the fourth year in a row in summer 2008, the orchestra performed the musical accompaniment to the Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular, seen by more than 10 million television viewers nationwide on NBC. A recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York Pops is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely through the generosity of individual donations, institutional grants, and concert income.

The King's Singers, Guest Artist
Regularly performing in excess of 100 concerts every season complemented by recording and teaching, The King’s Singers delight audiences around the world with their incomparable musicianship, charm, and wit. With the recent album release Landscape and Time, they have maintained their place at the apex of a cappella singing, and are counted among the world’s elite classical performers. In 2008 the ensemble celebrates 40 years of music making.

The King’s Singers’ repertoire is all-encompassing: from medieval music to masterpieces of the Renaissance; from lieder to folk, pop, and jazz; or with a contemporary commission from a leading composer, they are constantly expanding their repertoire. Since their debut concert in 1968, they have commissioned works from many well-known composers including Krzysztof Penderecki, Luciano Berio, Peter Maxwell Davies, Richard Rodney Bennett, and György Ligeti. With a dozen such commissions since 2000, the latest works will come from John McCabe, Eric Whitacre, Michael Nyman, and Ivan Moody.

The list of venues at which The King’s Singers have appeared is equally diverse, including cathedrals and palaces as well as many of the world’s major concert halls. They have joined forces with many famous orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as the chamber ensembles Concordia, Sarband, and L’Arpeggiata.

The group has collaborated with distinguished soloists such as Kiri Te Kanawa, Emanuel Ax, George Shearing, Evelyn Glennie, and even Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys. These collaborations have often resulted in recordings to add to the group’s discography of nearly 100 albums on the Signum Classics, BMG, and EMI labels.

Renowned for their commitment to blend, balance, and intonation in their own performances, they are keen to pass on their knowledge through educational work. They conduct master classes in many countries, and have for 10 years been Prince Consort Ensemble-in-Residence at the Royal College of Music, London.

Above all, it is their simple enjoyment of what they do that has captured the imagination of the public all over the world.

Special Guest: Marilyn Horne