Westminster Symphonic Choir Performs with The Philadelphia Orchestra

The Westminster Symphonic Choir will begin its 2013-2014 season with a series of performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia September 26 - 28.  The program will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.   Additionally, the Westminster Choir will perform Nico Muhly’s Bright Mass with Canons.

Composed of all of the juniors, seniors and graduate students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, the Westminster Symphonic Choir has recorded and performed with major orchestras under virtually every internationally acclaimed conductor of the past 78 years.  For its first major orchestral collaboration in 1934 legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski brought the Philadelphia Orchestra to Princeton to perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Westminster Symphonic Choir in the Princeton University Chapel to celebrate the opening of the Westminster Choir College campus.  Recognized as one of the world’s leading choral ensembles, the choir has sung more than 350 performances with the New York Philharmonic alone.  

The Westminster Choir will return to Philadelphia in 2014 to perform Rachmaninoff’s The Bells conducted by Vladimir Jurowski February 13 through 15.  The new season also will include performances in New York City.  The Symphonic Choir will perform Handel’s Messiah with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Andrew Manze December 17 through 21 at Lincoln Center.  On May 5 it join the New York Philharmonic again, conducted by Alan Gilbert, to perform the New York premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.