Andrew Megill, guest conductor
Music of Bach, Willan, and Zelenka
Bryan Spinks, presiding
Thomas Troeger, preaching
Marquand Chapel
409 Prospect Street, New Haven
Guest conductor Andrew Megill will direct Yale Schola Cantorum in a special evensong service to inaugurate the new season on Sunday, September 26 at 5pm in Marquand Chapel. Thomas H. Troeger, Lantz Professor of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School and the Institute of Sacred Music, will preside.
The choir will present Bach’s Cantata BWV 149, written for Michaelmas; Healy Willan’s An Apostrophe to the Heavenly Host; and a Magnificat by Jan Dismas Zelenka.
Andrew Megill is recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of his generation, known for his passionate artistry and unusually wide-ranging repertoire, extending from early music to newly-composed works. Dr. Megill has prepared choruses for many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors. He has collaborated with the American Composers Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies (Beethoven and Glass); the American Symphony under Leon Botstein (works by Shostakovich and Prokofiev; the American premiere of Weill’s Eternal Road, parts III and IV; Rachmaninov’s The Bells and the American premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s On The Last Frontier; a concert of works by Frederich Nietzsche and Frederic Delius; and a concert of twelve-tone music by Eisler and Henze); the Cleveland Orchestra under Pierre Boulez (Wagner’s Parsifal); the Dresden Philharmonic under Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos (Brahms’ Requiem); the National Symphony under Zdenek Macal (Verdi Requiem); the New Jersey Symphony under Neemi Jaarvi (Brahms’ Requiem); the New York Philharmonic under Charles Dutoit (Berlioz La Damnation de Faust) and Alan Gilbert (Handel’s Messiah); the Spoleto Festival Orchestra under Joseph Flummerfelt and Emmanuel Villaume; and the Mark Morris Dance Company under Jane Glover (Handel’s L’Allegro) and Craig Smith (Virgil Thompson’s Four Saints in Three Acts).
Since 1989, Dr. Megill has served as Artistic Director of Fuma Sacra, Ensemble-in-residence at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, recognized as “one of America’s leading professional ensembles specializing in Renaissance and Baroque vocal music” whose performances leave the audience “gasping in amazement” (Classical New Jersey). Dr. Megill is also Music Director of the Masterwork Chorus, one of metropolitan New York’s finest volunteer choirs. With Masterwork, Dr. Megill has conducted the major choral-orchestral repertoire in the regions finest halls, including Avery Fisher and Carnegie Halls.
He returns to Yale for the second time to guest conduct the Yale Schola Cantorum, the University’s renowned chamber choir founded in 2003 by Simon Carrington.
The Evensong is open to the public; there is plenty of free parking. For more information, call 203-432-5062.