Yale Camerata, Glee Club, and Schola Cantorum
Simon Carrington, guest conductor
La Gloire de la Musique Française
Woolsey Hall, 500 College Street
Free; no tickets requrired. Presented with the Yale Glee Club, School of Music, and Symphony Orchestra.
Program:
Sancta Maria, succurre miseris - Phillippe Rogier (c. 1561-1596)
Dominus Regnavit (1734) - Jean Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville (1711-1772)
La mort d’Ophelie (1848) - Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Le Ballet des Ombres (1828)
Stabat Mater (1950-1951) - Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Psaume CL, Halleluiah, louez le Dieu - César Franck (1822-1890)
Simon Carrington, Professor Emeritus of Choral Conducting and founder of Yale Schola Cantorum, returns to Yale on February 27 to conduct Schola, Yale Camerata, and Yale Glee Club in La Gloire de la Musique Française at 3pm in Woolsey Hall.
Since leaving Yale in 2009, Simon Carrington has divided his time between guest conducting all over the world and his home in France. In homage to his adopted country, he has chosen an all-French program for his return to Yale.
The music of the exotically named French baroque composer Jean-Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville is one of the hidden delights from that glittering period of French music, and his Grand Motet to be performed by Yale Schola Cantorum with Robert Mealy’s period orchestra is as exciting and dramatic as it is surprising. Yale Glee Club, with Erika Schroth at the piano, will perform two works by Hector Berlioz (Le mort d’Ophelie and Le Ballet des ombres) that demonstrate the composer’s astonishing brilliance distilled into highly effective miniatures. Yale Camerata, together with Yale Symphony Orchestra, will offer Francis Poulenc’s Stabat Mater with Sherezade Panthaki as the soprano soloist, one of the composer’s least known but most moving sacred choral works: tender, passionate, and eccentric in turn. As a finale, the choirs will join forces to perform César Franck’s grand setting of Psaume CL Halleluiah, louez le Dieu, accompanied by the mighty Newberry Organ in Woolsey Hall.
Simon Carrington has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in music, performing as singer, double bass player, and conductor, first in his native UK, where he was a creative force for twenty-five years with the internationally acclaimed British vocal ensemble The King’s Singers, which he co-founded while at Cambridge. He later migrated to the US, where he held posts at the University of Kansas and New England Conservatory before coming to Yale in 2003. At Yale he founded the Yale Schola Cantorum, the 24-voice chamber choir that he brought to international prominence, attracting the interest of his successor, Masaaki Suzuki. He now maintains an active schedule as a freelance conductor and choral clinician, leading workshops and master classes around the world.
The concert on February 27 is presented by Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Glee Club with support from Yale School of Music and Yale Symphony Orchestra. It is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. More information is at 203-432-5062.