EPSG:4326

A Bouquet of Jewish Choral Music

Center for Jewish History

Many, if not most of, today’s leading classical composers have won this and other major awards in their youth. Hear great music by 10 rising stars.

Ten world premieres by BMI Young Composer Award recipients

Christ & St Stephen's Church

The constitution’s preamble begins with the words “We the people,” a term which over the centuries has taken on a life of its own. In the context of our concert, entitled Composers Without Borders – The Ties That Bind Us, we focus on the unity of humankind, not individual governments, whether open and honest or repressive and evil. There are countless common threads present in people from all over the globe. The desire and ability to express oneself through music is one which cannot be suppressed by leaders of countries. Music unifies and uplifts all people. Our concert highlights the unending compositional creativity of mankind despite the complicated interrelationships of the countries represented.

Composers Without Borders

New York Society for Ethical Culture

Ned Miller Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was both a composer and a writer. Best known for his art songs which number over 500, Rorem was the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Frequently described as a neoromantic composer, he showed limited interest in the emerging modernist aesthetic of his lifetime. As a writer, he kept—and later published—numerous diaries in which he spoke candidly of his exchanges and relationships with many cultural figures of America and France. I had the distinct pleasure of planning and conducting both his 70th and 75th birthday concerts with The New York Virtuoso Singers. I met with him in his apartment, where he looked through his file cabinets, handing me multiple choral works he wished me to conduct. Little did I know then that these two concerts would present only a fraction of his total choral output. Recently I pored through ALL of them, choosing my favorites to present here for his 100th birthday tribute. I only wish he were able to enjoy this concert, as he did the two others.

All Ned Rorem - 100th Birthday Tribute

While many of Bach’s contemporaries actively engaged in writing cantatas, Telemann being the most well-known, Bach used this genre to create some of his most experimental works. He frequently employed musical ideas to illuminate, deepen, and sometimes contradict the message of the text. In Bach's hands, the cantata evolved from a work of devotion to that of a penetrating psychological exploration of religious art. The composer lays bare and dissects every emotion, vividly bringing them to life through music. These include the painful paradoxes of the human condition, the desire of good but falling into temptation, fear, and the effects of sin itself. Bach puts into service every musical device available during the eighteenth century, and he forges new ones to startle his listeners into engagement with the subject. Through their complexity, ambition, and harmonic daring, the greatest among Bach's cantatas have no rival among Baroque composers, despite their likely having puzzled his first listeners, as they might puzzle us today. Bach's music poignantly represents the human condition and offers listeners a glimpse into humanity's relationship with God and eternity. -- Dr. Vincent Rone.

The New York Virtuoso Singers

Jan 25, 2025

Celebrate Harold Rosenbaum's 75th birthday

May 17, 2025

Compose Yourself

Sep 22, 2024

A Bouquet of Jewish Choral Music

May 19, 2024

Ten world premieres by BMI Young Composer Award recipients

The New York Virtuoso Singers