Thursday, Mar 26, 2020
The Westminster Choir and the Westminster Symphonic Choir’s long history of performing with some of the world’s great orchestras will continue in the 2020-21 season.
Sunday, November 22, 2020, the Westminster Choir will present a program of unaccompanied works conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, at Carnegie Hall. In an interview on the Carnegie Hall website, Nézet-Séguin, who studied choral conducting at Westminster Choir College, reflected on the upcoming concert and said, “To be given the opportunity to focus — without instruments — on the human voice and the harmony not only of the sounds but the harmony of the hearts and of the souls, which I think is very special and unique to the Westminster culture. This is really palpable when we’re on the stage.” LEARN MORE.
Treble voices from the Westminster Symphonic Choir will travel to Carnegie Hall on Thursday, December 3, 2020, to perform Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Orchestra of Saint Luke’s conducted by Bernard Labadie. David Hyde Pierce will narrate with excerpts from Shakespeare’s play. LEARN MORE.
February 12, 13 and 14, 2021 the Westminster Symphonic Choir will perform the complete version of Ravel’s ballet Daphnis and Chloé with The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Stéphane Denève at the Kimmel Center. Shimmering and sensual, Daphnis and Chloé is a masterpiece of French impressionistic splendor. LEARN MORE.
The ensemble will return to the Kimmel Center March 25, 26 and 28, 2021, to perform Charles Ives’s New England Holiday with The Philadelphia Orchestra. This radical-for-its-time look at Americana will be conducted by the acclaimed Michael Tilson Thomas. LEARN MORE.
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 acclaimed conductor of the past 86 years. Its collaboration with The Philadelphia Orchestra began in 1934 when Leopold Stokowski brought the orchestra to Princeton to perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Westminster Symphonic Choir in the Princeton University Chapel. Recognized as one of the world’s leading choral ensembles, the choir has sung more than 500 performances with the New York Philharmonic alone. Recent seasons have included performances of Bernstein’s Mass with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Berg's Wozzeck with the London Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen; Villa-Lobos' Choros No. 10 and Estévez’ Cantata Criolla with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustavo Dudamel; Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim and Rouse’s Requiem with the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert.
Performances with the Westminster Symphonic Choir are defining milestones in the musical lives of Westminster alumni.