Carnegie Hall Performance Heralded “A Bold, Meaningful Experiment” by NY Times‏

On Saturday, May 10, at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra closed the Spring for Music Festival amid thunderous applause and a standing ovation. The concert began with the Mendelssohn Choir‘s a capella performance of Anton Bruckner‘s Ave Maria. According to The New York Times, the Bruckner set “a reverential tone from the start” through “nuanced singing from the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.” Without pause at the end of that work, the orchestra segued into the final scene of Francis Poulenc‘s Dialogues des Carmelites, then launched into James MacMillan‘s Woman of the Apocalypse.

The second half of the program was “Mozart’s Death in Words and Music,” Maestro Manfred Honeck‘s unique interpretation of Mozart‘s Requiem, integrating Gregorian chant and dramatic readings into the performance, which Pittsburgh audiences heard performed last season. Once again, actor F. Murray Abraham joined the Choir and PSO as narrator along with soloists Sunhae Im, Elizabeth DeShong, Benjamin Bruns, and Liang Li.

If you weren’t able to be there in person, or you missed the livestream of the concert on Saturday, you can still listen to the recording.  Visit WQXR 105.9FM’s website for your chance to be a part of this momentous occasion!

Read the reviews on our In the Press page!