CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Staatskapelle Berlin

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 8:00 PM

“The orchestra makes a wonderful sound.”—Boston Globe

Mahler’s gigantic Eighth Symphony is no less than his validation of the regenerative power of love. With texts drawn from Latin hymns and the last scene of Goethe’s Faust, this cantata-like work was the first symphony to be sung throughout. But the composer described its intended effect more grandly: “There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving.” The huge forces required for a performance inspired its first presenter to call it the “Symphony of a Thousand.”

Staatskapelle Berlin
Pierre Boulez, Conductor
Eberhard Friedrich, Chorus Director
Christine Brewer, Soprano (Magna Peccatrix)
Adrianne Pieczonka, Soprano (Un poenitentium)
Sylvia Schwartz, Soprano (Mater gloriosa)
Michelle DeYoung, Mezzo-Soprano (Mulier Samaritana)
Jane Henschel, Mezzo-Soprano (Maria Aegyptiaca)
Stephen Gould, Tenor (Doctor Marianus)
Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Bass-Baritone (Pater ecstaticus)
Robert Holl, Bass (Pater profundus)
Westminster Symphonic Choir
Joe Miller, Conductor
The American Boychoir
Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Music Director

MAHLER Symphony No. 8, "Symphony of a Thousand"

Perspectives: Daniel Barenboim

Program is approximately 1 hour, 20 minutes, and will be performed without intermission.

This concert is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for choral music established by S. Donald Sussman in memory of Judith Arron and Robert Shaw.

Program Notes:

“On the first day of the holidays, I went up to the hut in Maiernigg with the firm resolution of idling the holiday away (I needed to so much that year) and recruiting my strength. On the threshold of my old workshop the Spiritus creator took hold of me and shook me and drove me on for the next eight weeks until my greatest work was done. ” So Mahler wrote to his wife, Alma, in June 1910, remembering the events four summers earlier, when in unusually short order he sketched his monumental Eighth Symphony in a small town on Lake Wörth amid the Carinthian Mountains. The eighth-century Pentecost hymn Veni, creator spiritus (“Come, Creator Spirit” ) served as the initial inspiration for the Symphony while the ending of Goethe’s Faust, Part II, provided the basis for the rest of the work.

Various factors have helped promote the idea that in some respects Mahler composed one gigantic symphony over the course of his career. There are the many interconnections between and among his symphonies, his famous comment to Sibelius that the symphony must be like the world, embracing everything, and then there is the intensely personal nature of all his works. No matter the various groupings—the early “Wunderhorn” symphonies, the middle instrumental ones, and the late works—each symphony nonetheless has its own particular genesis, musical profile, and reception. To say that the Eighth is a work apart is in many ways true, but that could be said of the others as well.

Mahler told his biographer Richard Specht that in comparison to the Eighth “all the rest of my works are no more than introductions. I have never written anything like it; it is quite different in both content and style from all my other works, and certainly the biggest thing that I have ever done. Nor do I think that I have ever worked under such a feeling of compulsion; it was like a lightning vision—I saw the whole piece before my eyes and only needed to write it down, as though it were being dictated to me.”

According to conventional definitions the Eighth Symphony is more a cantata or oratorio than a symphony. The choruses and vocal soloists pervade the work, unlike earlier choral symphonies such as Beethoven’s Ninth, Mendelssohn’s Second, and Mahler’s own Second and Third that use the chorus at or near the end. Mahler recognized this as a revolutionary feature, telling Specht, “Its form is something altogether new. Can you imagine a symphony that is sung throughout, from beginning to end? So far I have employed words and the human voice merely to suggest, to sum up, to establish a mood … Here the voice is also an instrument. The whole first movement is strictly symphonic in form yet completely sung. It is really strange that nobody has ever thought of this before; it is simplicity itself, The True Symphony, in which the most beautiful instrument of all is led to its calling. Yet it is used not only as sound, because the voice is the bearer of poetic thoughts.”

Mahler thus combines the two outlets of his compositional oeuvre—symphonic and vocal music—in a piece that is in many respects a synthesis of his creative past and that of music history more generally. As Mahler scholar Donald Mitchell has remarked, “There is scarcely a genre that is not touched on, whether it is cantata or oratorio, solo song or operatic aria, childlike chorus or exalted chorale.” Mahler cast the Eighth Symphony in two movements, with texts in Latin and German, and uses an immense orchestra, two large mixed choirs and separate children’s chorus, organ, off-stage brass, and eight soloists. These extraordinary forces prompted its unofficial title, “Symphony of a Thousand,” which was not of Mahler’s own devising. The name came rather from the shrewd impresario Emil Gutmann, who arranged the legendary premiere on September 12, 1910, at Munich’s New Music Festival Hall. The performance, which was repeated the next day, allegedly employed 858 singers and 171 instrumentalists, for a total of 1,029 performers (plus Mahler conducting).

If Mahler had been surprised in the summer of 1906 that the Symphony came unbidden and was written so quickly, he could hardly have anticipated what the next few years would hold as he awaited its premiere. In May 1907 he resigned as director of the Vienna Court Opera; his beloved elder daughter Marie died in Maiernigg later that summer. He took a position with the Metropolitan Opera in New York and then with the New York Philharmonic. Returning to Europe for the summers, he composed his late works: Das Lied von der Erde, the Ninth Symphony, and sketches for his Tenth.

Preliminary rehearsals for the premiere of the Eighth Symphony began in late May 1910 in Vienna and Leipzig. That summer Mahler learned that Alma was having an affair with the young architect Walter Gropius and in despair sought out Sigmund Freud. Shortly after their famous meeting in Leiden, which evidently proved helpful, Mahler went to Munich to lead the final rehearsals of the Eighth. He dedicated the Symphony to Alma; it is the only one of his symphonies to have a personal dedication. The premiere was by all accounts an enormous success, undoubtedly the greatest of Mahler’s career as a composer. It also turned out to be the final time he conducted a first performance of one of his own pieces; he never heard Das Lied von der Erde or the Ninth Symphony, both premiered after his death the next year at the age of 50.

The audience at the Munich premiere included many of the musical and cultural elite in Europe. Among the distinguished musicians attending was 28-year old Leopold Stokowski, who would soon be appointed the third music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Six years later, in April and May 1916, he presented the Symphony’s American premiere in nine highly acclaimed performances at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music and New York’s Metropolitan Opera House. The forces employed outdid even the Munich premiere, featuring 1,068 performers (plus Stokowski), and the performances marked a turning point in the Orchestra’s history.

After an introductory measure in which the organ firmly establishes the key of E-flat, the Symphony opens with an enormous burst of energy as the massed choral forces exclaim the Veni, creator spiritus text. The opening motto reappears throughout the Symphony and ultimately caps the work’s final measures. The soprano initiates the soloists and their interactions with the double chorus and children’s chorus. One of the climaxes of the movement is the section "Accende lumen sensibus, Infunde amorem cordibus!” (Illuminate our senses, Pour love into our hearts!), which serves as a conceptual bridge to the more humanistic themes of the second movement. Also prominent is the elaborate contrapuntal writing, including a massive double fugue, evidence of Mahler’s deep study of Bach around this time.

Mahler had originally planned for the Symphony to have four movements, with a slow one (Caritas) coming next, followed by a scherzo (Christmas Games with the Child), and a hymn finale (Creation through Eros), which apparently would have drawn its text from Goethe’s Faust. In looking to an author and play he revered, Mahler was following a long tradition of Faust settings in music, not only in many operatic versions, but also as orchestral works, including ones by Berlioz, Liszt, Schumann, and Wagner.

The second part of the Symphony is more than twice as long as the first and indeed is the longest movement Mahler ever composed. It begins mysteriously, with an extended slow introduction in the minor. The movement is often described as encompassing the expected next three sections of a typical symphony—a slow movement, scherzo, and finale—but that does not do full justice to its layout, parts of which return to music from the opening movement. The soloists, who had been anonymous in the Veni, creator movement, are now used to convey specific Biblical and quasi-spiritual figures (among them Mater gloriosa as the Virgin Mary, “the personification of the Eternal Feminine” ), as well characters from Faust (including a penitent woman, Faust’s beloved Gretchen).

One of the most remarkable features of the Symphony is that despite the surface disparities between the two movements— the one sacred, the other secular, the first in Latin, the second in German, the opening a choral cantata and the following much more operatic in character—despite all this, there is a fundamental unity that functions on multiple levels. The two movements share prominent musical themes, most notably the Veni, creator spiritus motive that opens and closes the work.

—Christopher H. Gibbs
Used with kind permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra. © The Philadelphia Orchestra

Staatskapelle Berlin
Pierre Boulez, Conductor
With almost 450 years of tradition, Staatskapelle Berlin is one of the oldest orchestras in the world. Originally founded in 1570 as a court orchestra by Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg, and at first solely dedicated to carrying out musical services for the court, the ensemble expanded its activities with the founding of the Royal Court Opera in 1742 by Frederick the Great. Ever since, the orchestra has been closely tied to Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

Many important musicians have conducted the orchestra: Gaspare Spontini, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Felix von Weingartner, Richard Strauss, Erich Kleiber, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan, Franz Konwitschny, and Otmar Suitner are just a few of the conductors who have decidedly influenced the instrumental and interpretive culture of Staatskapelle Berlin. The works of Richard Wagner—who himself conducted the Königlich Preußische Hofkapelle in 1844 at the premiere of his Flying Dutchman and in 1876 during the preparations for the Berlin premiere of Tristan und Isolde—has represented a pillar of the repertoire of the Staatsoper and its orchestra for some time.

Since 1992, Daniel Barenboim has served as the orchestra’s general music director; in 2000 the orchestra named him “Conductor for Life.” He has led the orchestra throughout Europe, Israel, Japan, and China, as well as North and South America. Performances of Beethoven’s complete symphonies and piano concertos in Vienna, Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo; the symphony cycles of Schumann and Brahms, respectively; and the three-part performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Japan are some of the most outstanding events of recent years. As part of the Staatsoper’s Festtage 2007, the symphonies and orchestral songs of Gustav Mahler were performed under the batons of Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez at Berlin’s Philharmonie.

Staatskapelle Berlin was named Orchestra of the Year in 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008 by the journal Opernwelt; in 2003 the orchestra was awarded the Furtwängler Prize. A constantly growing number of recordings in both the operatic and symphonic repertoires document the work of the orchestra: The 2002 recording of Beethoven symphonies was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque, the 2003 recording of Wagner’s Tannhäuser was awarded a Grammy, and the 2007 live recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was awarded an Echo Prize.

In the Orchesterakademie, founded in 1997, young musicians gather professional experience in both opera and concert performance, mentored by members of the Staatskapelle. Furthermore, many Staatskapelle musicians volunteer at Musikkindergarten Berlin, an initiative founded by Daniel Barenboim. Staatskapelle members also dedicate themselves to working in chamber music formations, as well as in the ensemble Preußens Hofmusik, focusing on the Berlin music tradition from the 18th century. This rich musical activity can be experienced in several concert series held at the Staatsoper’s Apollo-Saal.

Eberhard Friedrich, Chorus Director
After studying conducting with Helmuth Rilling in Frankfurt am Main, Eberhard Friedrich was appointed chorus master of the Theater in Koblenz in 1986. He also served in the same capacity for the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden beginning in 1991. Friedrich led the Baden-Württemberg State Children’s Choir, and fulfilled guest engagements in Krakow, Talinn, and Vilnius; at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart; and with the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Bavarian Radio Chorus.

Friedrich has worked closely with the Bayreuth Festival since 1993; in 2000, he was appointed chorus master of the Bayreuth Festival Chorus. His association with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden began in 1995; after various guest appearances, he was appointed chorus master in 1998. Among his many accomplishments, Friedrich prepared the Staatsoper Chorus for a Grammy-winning recording of Tannhäuser, and for Peter Mussbach’s new production of Schönberg’s Moses and Aaron during the 2004 Festtage, both under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. That year the Staatsoper Chorus was also named Chorus of the Year in a Opernwelt magazine critic’s poll.

Christine Brewer, Soprano (Magna Peccatrix)
Grammy Award–winning American soprano Christine Brewer’s appearances in opera, concert, and recital are marked with her own warm and brilliant timbre, combined with a vibrant personality and emotional honesty reminiscent of the great sopranos of the past. Her range, golden tone, boundless power, and control make her a favorite of the stage as well as a sought-after recording artist.

Highlights of Ms. Brewer’s 2008–2009 season are numerous, and include Verdi’s Requiem with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson, as well as with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis; concerts with the BBC Philharmonic in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and on tour to Spain with Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder; and performances of Britten’s War Requiem in Dresden and at Royal Albert Hall in London. Typical of this versatile artist, she sings and records Strauss opera scenes with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Donald Runnicles; performs Handel with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Wagner with the Malaysia Philharmonic; and closes the season in the title role of Gluck’s masterpiece, Alceste, at Santa Fe Opera.

Ms. Brewer’s recordings include a contribution to Hyperion’s prestigious Schubert series with pianist Graham Johnson; the Janáček Glagolitic Mass and Dvořák Te Deum with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (Telarc); Dvořák Stabat mater (Naxos); and two recital recordings entitled Saint Louis Woman and Music for a While, produced and released by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Recent recordings include Barber’s Vanessa (Chandos) with the BBC Symphony, and the Grammy Award–winning Bolcom Songs of Innocence and of Experience (Naxos), both conducted by Leonard Slatkin; Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (EMI) with Sir Simon Rattle conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; a disc of lieder for Hyperion's new Richard Strauss series with pianist Roger Vignoles; and Britten’s War Requiem with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Kurt Masur (LPO Live).

Adrianne Pieczonka, Soprano (Un poenitentium)
Dramatic and stunning, Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka performs on leading opera and concert stages throughout Europe, North America, and Asia under the direction of many of the greatest conductors. She is particularly renowned for her interpretation of Verdi, Strauss, and Wagner roles.

Ms. Pieczonka’s 2008–2009 season features performances of Der Rosenkavalier and Don Carlos in Dresden; the Prima Donna in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos in Bilbao and Munich; Otello in Munich; Arabella in Vienna; Tosca in San Francisco; her return to the Metropolitan Opera in one of her favorite roles, Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre; and her much-anticipated debut as Leonora in Fidelio with the Canadian Opera Company.

Following the critical and popular success of her first solo recording for Orfeo that featured some of her greatest Wagner and Strauss roles, Ms. Pieczonka’s next CD—due to be released in September 2009—will feature the music of Puccini. She also stars as Elsa in a new recording of Lohengrin on the Hännsler label, also due for release in 2009.

Ms. Pieczonka is an Officer of the Order of Canada and, in 2007, was named a Kammersängerin (“chamber singer”) by the Austrian government.

Sylvia Schwartz, Soprano (Mater gloriosa)

Michelle DeYoung, Mezzo-Soprano (Mulier Samaritana)
Michelle DeYoung has established herself as one of the most exciting artists of her generation. She is in demand throughout the world, appearing regularly with the New York Philharmonic; the Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras; The Cleveland Orchestra; San Francisco Symphony; the MET Orchestra; Vienna Philharmonic; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; Orchestre de Paris; Staatskapelle Berlin; and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In addition, she has performed at such prestigious festivals as Ravinia, Tanglewood, Saito Kinen, Edinburgh, and Lucerne.

Equally at home on the opera stage, Ms. DeYoung has won acclaim for her performances of Fricka, Sieglinde, and Waltraute in the Ring cycle; Kundry in Parsifal; Venus in Tannhäuser; Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde; Dido in Les Troyens, and Marguerite in La damnation de Faust. She has sung in the great opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Bayreuth Festival, Staatsoper Berlin, Opéra de Paris, and the Tokyo Opera. She most recently created the role of the Shaman in Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera.

Ms. DeYoung’s most recent recording is Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Haitink (CSO Resound). She has won Grammy Awards for her recordings of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Symphony No. 3 (SFS), and Berlioz’s Les Troyens (LSO Live!). Other albums in her growing discography include Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah” (Chandos), and Mahler’s Das klagende Lied (BMG) and Das Lied von der Erde (Reference Recordings). Her first solo disc was released on the EMI label.

This season, Ms. DeYoung’s many engagements have included her debut at the Los Angeles Opera as Fricka in Achim Freyer’s new productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre and returns to the Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the Musikverien in Vienna. This summer she makes her house and role debut as Eboli in Don Carlos at the Cincinnati Opera, and appears at the Ravinia, Aspen, and Grand Teton festivals; next season, she returns to the Los Angeles Opera for the complete Ring cycle and appears at Carnegie Hall with both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Jane Henschel, Mezzo-Soprano (Maria Aegyptiaca)

Stephen Gould, Tenor (Doctor Marianus)
American Stephen Gould is currently one of the most sought-after heroic operatic tenors worldwide. He attended the New England Conservatory of Music; upon completing his studies, he joined the Lyric Opera of Chicago Center for American Artists. Other opera engagements have included Boston Concert Opera and Los Angeles Music Center Opera. For eight years, Mr. Gould toured the US, performing in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-hit musical The Phantom of the Opera. He returned thereafter to New York City, where he made the vocal transition to heldentenor under the guidance of former Metropolitan opera baritone John Fiorito.

Critical praise greeted his debut as Florestan in Fidelio with the Linzer Landestheater. Popular and critical success continued with Britten’s Peter Grimes and Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, followed by Mr. Gould’s many performances of the title role in Wagner’s Tannhäuser.

His career highlights of 2008 included the revival of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the Bayreuth Festival conducted by Christian Thielemann; Otello (in concert) at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw; Tannhäuser at the Semperoper, Dresden; Oedipus Rex conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in London; and a new production of Götterdämmerung at the Wiener Staatsoper. Mr. Gould’s 2009 engagements include new productions of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt in London, Peter Grimes in Geneva, Tannhäuser at Las Palmas and in Rome, Otello in Tokyo, and Ring cycles at the Wiener Staatsoper.

In 2010, Mr. Gould has scheduled new production’s of Der fliegende Holländer in Madrid, Tannhäuser at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Der fliegende Holländer and Ring cycles in Vienna, his much anticipated debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and—at the turn of the year—his first Tristan in Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Kazushi Ono in Tokyo.

As a concert singer, Mr. Gould has been heard in such works as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony at the Bergen Festival, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder in Montreal, and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in Graz, as well as in such cities as Paris, Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Budapest. He was performed under the batons of such conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Daniel Barenboim, Marek Janowski, and Zubin Mehta.

Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Bass-Baritone (Pater ecstaticus)

Robert Holl, Bass (Pater profundus)
Robert Holl was born in Rotterdam where he studied with Jan Veth and David Hollestelle. In 1971 he won the First Prize at the International Vocal Competition in s’-Hertogenbosch, followed by studies with Hans Hotter in Munich. In 1972 he won the first prize at the International Music Competition of the German Broadcasting Association in Munich, resulting in TV and radio engagements, and orchestral concerts. Between 1973 and 1975 he was a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.

He has appeared at the Staatsoper Wien, at the Brussels and the Zurich Opera as Sprecher and Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Amfortas (Parsifal), Gremin (Yevgeny Onegin), Basilio (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Assur (Semiramide), Alfonso (Così fan tutte), La Roche (Capriccio), Wassermann (Rusalka), and Robert (Des Teufels Lustschloss) under such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Franz Welser-Möst.

At the Wiener Staatsoper he was and will be heard in different productions of Wagner operas as Landgraf Hermann in Tannhäuser, König Marke in Tristan und Isolde, and Gurnemanz in Parsifal.

He has consecutively appeared as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Bayreuth from 1996– 2002 with conductors Daniel Barenboim and Christian Thielemann. From 2004–2007 he was Bayreuth´s Gurnemanz in Christoph Schlingensief´s production of Parsifal, conducted by Pierre Boulez and Adam Fischer. He will return to the Bayreuth Festivals of 2008 and 2009 as König Marke in Christoph Marthaler’s production of Tristan und Isolde.

For many years, Mr. Holl has been a much sought-after concert singer, enabling him to acquire a wide range of concert repertoire. He has appeared with the most renowned conductors and orchestras in Europe, America, and Japan. He is also regarded as one of the most important Lieder singers of our time, having a particular preference for the German (especially Schubert) and Russian repertoire.His numerous musical activities also include master classes in Holland, Austria, Great Britain, and Canada; radio and TV productions; many recordings with renowned conductors; and Lieder CDs (some with András Schiff and Oleg Maisenberg, respectively, at the piano).

Mr. Holl is Artistic Director of Schubertiads in Austria and Holland, as well as Artistic Advisor of the Poetry and Music series in the Brahmssaal of the Vienna Musikverein. In 1990 he was awarded the prestigious Austrian title of Kammersänger, in 1997 he became an honorable member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien and of the festival Carinthischer Sommer as well. In 1998 he became a Professor for Lied and Oratory at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna. In 2005 he was awarded the Austian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class. In 2007 he received the high Dutch award of Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw in his hometown of Rotterdam.

Westminster Symphonic Choir
Joe Miller, Conductor
Composed of students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, the Westminster Symphonic Choir has recorded and performed with major orchestras
under virtually every internationally known conductor of the last 75 years. Recognized as one of the world’s leading choral ensembles, the choir has sung more than 300 performances with the New York Philharmonic alone.

In addition to this performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Mariss Jansons, the ensemble’s 2008–2009 season has included a series of performances with the New York Philharmonic: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, conducted by Gilbert Kaplan; Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Ton Koopman; Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, conducted by Kurt Masur; and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, conducted by Lorin Maazel. In May the ensemble will return to Carnegie Hall to join Pierre Boulez and the Staatskapelle Berlin in performances of Mahler’s three choral symphonies.

Recent seasons have included performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson, and Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Dresden Philharmonic, conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

Forty members of the Westminster Symphonic Choir are selected every year for the Westminster Choir, which has been the chorus-in-residence for the Spoleto Festival
USA since 1977. Its most recent recording is Heaven to Earth, recorded with conductor laureate Joseph Flummerfelt and released on the AVIE label.

Westminster Choir College is a division of Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts. A professional college of music with a choral emphasis, Westminster Choir College prepares students at the undergraduate and graduate levels for careers in teaching, sacred music, and performance.

The American Boychoir
Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Music Director
Celebrating its 70th Anniversary season, The American Boychoir, under the direction of Litton-Lodal Music Director Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, is regarded as the premier concert boys’ choir in the US and one of the finest boychoirs in the world. It continues to dazzle audiences with its unique blend of musical sophistication, effervescent spirit, and ensemble virtuosity. Boys from grades 4 through 8—reflecting the ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity of our nation—come from nine states and four foreign countries to pursue a rigorous musical and academic curriculum at The American Boychoir School, the only non-sectarian boys’ choir school in the nation. Founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1937, The American Boychoir has been located in Princeton, New Jersey, since 1950. In addition to maintaining an active national and international touring schedule, the ensemble performs and records regularly with such world-class artists and ensembles as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, soprano Jessye Norman, pop diva Beyoncé, and Sir Paul McCartney.

The American Boychoir has been extensively recorded and broadcast on radio and television, with some 45 commercial recordings to its name. A new CD entitled Harmony: American Songs of Faith was released in October 2007 on the boychoir’s own label, Albemarle Records.

During the 2007–2008 season, The American Boychoir perfoms more than 120 concerts in 14 states. The 70th anniversary season includes performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Kurt Masur; Bernstein's Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish,” with The Philadelphia Orchestra; and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach. The season culminates with a tour to the Czech Republic as a featured ensemble during the Second International Boys and Men’s Choral Festival in June 2008.