On December 2 the Yale Camerata performed its annual Advent concert, Sing Noël, conducted by Dr. Felicia Barber. A large and enthusiastic audience attended the concert in Yale’s Woolsey Hall. View the full concert recording here.
The featured work was Charpentier’s Messe de minuit (Midnight mass), a Baroque work with orchestral accompaniment and angelic solos by Veronica Kushner and Yale Voxtet members Juliet Papadopoulos, Ellen Robertson, Michaël Hudetz, Trevor Scott, and Peter Schertz. The program also contained holiday music from Nigeria, England, and Puerto Rico, as well as lesser-known American carol arrangements. Serene renditions of John Tavener’s The Lamb and Giovanni Battista Martini’s Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina lent intimacy to an otherwise exuberant program. There was familiar music, too: the audience was invited to sing Joy to the World, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and O Come, All Ye Faithful.
Dr. Barber displayed the Camerata’s depth of talent by assigning cameo solos to chorus members Lindsay Elliott, Shane Gillespie, Virginia Grabovsky, Em Kramm, Al Powers, Terence Wu, and Lisa Zhang. Two of her conducting students, Alex Whittington and Mahima Kumara, each conducted one piece. Keyboard accompaniment was provided by Nathaniel Gumbs, Ethan Haman, and William Braun.
—By Laurie Ongley
The Camerata will next perform on Sunday, February 11, at 4 p.m. in a joint concert with the Yale Glee Club where the featured work will be José Nunes’ Garcia’s Te Deum. Two concerts of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with the Yale Glee Club and Yale Symphony Orchestra will be performed in April—the first on April 3 in Woolsey Hall, and the second at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City on April 7. The Yale Camerata will also be featured in ISM’s 50th anniversary Hymn Festival “All Creation Sings” on Sunday, May 5 at 4 p.m. in Woolsey Hall. 