CONCERTS IN THE VILLAGE: THE 13TH SEASON BEGINS WITH HAYDN’S CREATION ON NOVEMBER 13TH
The 13th Season 2022-2023 of Concerts in the Village (CITV) opens with Joseph Haydn’s magnificent oratorio The Creation, at Kinderhook Reformed Church, 2:30pm, Sunday November 13th. The Broad Street Orchestra, Broad Street Chorale and five outstanding soloists – over 70 musicians – will perform this dramatic musical account of the world’s formation out of chaos and the arrival of Adam and Eve which followed. CITV Artistic Director David Smith conducts.
Darkness to light, water, wind, seas, mountains, rocks, every plant, every creature – all so colorfully depicted by Haydn. What could be more timely and expressive than this powerful narrative of generation. To accomplish all of this, one of music’s most imaginative composers calls upon extensive solo, choral, and symphonic forces to bring order out of chaos, and then with the arrival of Adam and Eve – that “blissful pair” – add human love to that order. In all of this Haydn brilliantly embraces both 18th-century classicism and 19th-century romanticism.
Guest soloists include sopranos Caroline Dunigan and Katherine Lerner Lee, tenor Maximillian Jansen, and baritones Nathaniel Sullivan and Jonathan Lawlor. Dunigan, Jansen, and Sullivan are graduates of Bard’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, in which Lerner Lee and Lawlor are current students. Recent Bard graduate Hailey McAvoy will be alto soloist at the conclusion.
Recently returned from Germany, Dunigan is well known to CITV audiences, having previously performed major works of Vaughan Williams, Cherubini, Mendelssohn and Saint Säens. Opera News has described her as a “regal bearing, sparkling soprano.” Lerner Lee, 2021 winner of the Bard Conservatory Concerto Contest, makes her second CITV appearance, following the Fauré Requiem in November, 2021. For CITV, Jansen was tenor soloist in Bach’s Mass in B minor, Handel’s Acis and Galatea, and Mozart’s “Misero! o sogno!” His many credits include both concerts and opera. Sullivan’s previous CITV performances have included Bach’s Coffee Cantata. He was a Vocal Fellow at Tanglewood in 2018 and 2019 and a Gerdine Young Artist at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2022. Lawlor, whose many solo credits include Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and the Brahms Requiem, will be making his CITV debut. Previous engagements include Boston Baroque and Emmanuel Music.
Kinderhook Reformed Church is located at 21 Broad Street (US Route 9), Kinderhook, NY 12106. Handicapped accessible. Suggested contribution $ 20, with students and children free.
Covid protocol: Masking optional, with dedicated area for those who so wish. Covid updates at www.concertsinthevillage.org