Local choral groups are preparing to make the 2002-2003 season something to sing about.
The Baltimore Choral Arts Society will mark the start of its 37th season and the sobering anniversary of the terrorist attacks with a program of music and reflection on Sept. 11 at Goucher College's Kraushaar Auditorium. Works by area musicians, poets and essayists will be featured in the presentation.
Music director Tom Hall's 20th year with the chorus was to have been celebrated last season with a re-creation of his 1982 debut concert; that event was changed after Sept. 11. Now rescheduled for November, the program offers two vibrant celebrations of music itself, Handel's Alexander's Feast and Britten's Hymn to St. Cecelia. Soloists include the noted baritone Sanford Sylvan and up-and-coming soprano Hyunah Yu.
The schedule continues with the annual, televised "Christmas with Choral Arts," this year at the Basilica of the Assumption. In February at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Choral Arts will do its part for the city-wide Vivat! St. Petersburg festival with a performance of Rachmaninoff's sublime All-Night Vigil.
Jazz great Dave Brubeck, who last teamed up with Choral Arts in 2001, returns for a presentation of his cantata Beloved Son. Joined by the Morgan State University Choir, the ensemble will also offer settings of poetry by Langston Hughes, and Brubeck's quartet will kick up some jazz on its own in this March concert at Morgan's new Murphy Fine Arts Center.
Beethoven's mighty Missa Solemnis is slated to close the season in May at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. (Choral Arts will start getting into the Beethoven mode next month, singing the Ninth Symphony with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Summer MusicFest.)
For more information on the Choral Arts season, call 410-523-7070, or visit www.baltimorechoralarts.org.
Dimmock to return
T. Herbert Dimmock, who was on leave the second half of the 2001-2002 season, will be back in the fall to lead the Handel Choir of Baltimore's 68th year. The opening all-Bach program, at Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church in October, includes the Magnificat and Coffee Cantata.
December will see the annual "Christmas With the Handel Choir" concert - this year at the Scottish Rite Temple - and three performances of Handel's Messiah at Christ Lutheran Church and Kraushaar Auditorium (one of the performances at the latter will be complete, the others abridged).
The group will also explore Russian choral works - by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff - during Vivat! St. Petersburg in February; the venue will be Old St Paul's Church.
Another great Handel oratorio, Solomon, will be presented in March at Har Sinai, followed by Verdi's choral masterpiece, the Requiem, in May at Morgan State's Murphy Fine Arts Center (marking Dimmock's 25th season as music director).
For more information on the Handel Choir of Baltimore's season, call 410-366-6544 or visit www.handelchoir.org.