Monuments of the German Baroque: Bach and Schütz
Saturday, March 9, 2002 at 8:00 pm
Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston
Ticket information
Performances:
Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Musicalische Exequien, Op. 7 SWV 279-281
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
Performing Artists
Gail Abbey
soprano
Gail Abbey, soprano, has performed regularly with Boston’s renowned music organizations since coming to the area 20 years ago. She is a longtime member of the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and Emmanuel Music, and has performed as a soloist with each of these groups. This is her second appearance with The Spectrum Singers. Ms. Abbey is a graduate of Westminster Choir College, where she sang in the Spoleto Festival and was a soloist with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta. She currently teaches in Holliston, MA, where she lives with her husband and two children. Gloria Raymond, mezzo-soprano, has extensive experience in a broad range of oratorio, opera, song recital, and contemporary music performances in which she has premiered works by John Harbison, Peter Child, Earl Kim, Donald Sur, Charles Fussell, Robert Kyr, and Stephen Paulus. She holds music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Maine, and was the winner of the first Maine NATS vocal competition. She has been a soloist with many ensembles throughout New England, including the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, The Spectrum Singers, Cantata Singers, Collage Contemporary Music Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Portland Symphony Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Aria Guild. For many years Ms. Raymond has been a soloist and recording artist with Emmanuel Music of Boston, performing in their weekly Bach Cantata liturgical service, the Brahms and Schubert recital series, and in concerts of works by Schütz, Handel, and Mozart.
Frank Kelley
tenor
Frank Kelley, tenor, has performed many roles with the San Francisco Opera Company, the Boston Lyric Opera, has appeared at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, The Frankfurt Opera, and in the Peter Sellars productions of Die Sieben Todsünden, Das Kleine Mahagonny, Cosi fan tutte, and Le nozze di Figaro. The Mozart operas were recorded by Decca and Austrian Public Television, and were broadcast on PBS’s “Great Performances”. Mr. Kelley has sung in concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He has performed medieval and renaissance music with Sequentia, the Boston Camerata, and the Waverly Consort, and performs baroque music with Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, and Aston Magna. Mr. Kelley has participated in the Blossom Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, Pepsico Summerfare, the Nakamichi Festival, the New England Bach Festival, Next Wave Festival, Wexford Festival Opera, and the Boston Early Music Festival. He has recorded for London, Decca, Erato, Harmonia Mundi France, Teldec, Telarc, Koch International, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Arabesque, and Northeastern.
Mark Andrew Cleveland
bass
Mark Andrew Cleveland, bass, has performed extensively throughout New England. A versatile performer, his repertoire ranges from chant to contemporary works and oratorio to opera. Mr. Cleveland has performed frequently in Boston with many distinguished organizations including the Cantata Singers, Boston Baroque, The Spectrum Singers, and Masterworks Chorale. He was also the soloist in the premiere of Earl Kim’s Scenes from a Movie, Part 3: The 26th Dream, and created the role of “Tennyson” in the premiere of the Andy Vores opera, Freshwater. In addition, he premiered the song cycle Cynthia, a commissioned work written for him by Marilyn Ziffrin. Recent performances include “Jesus” in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Cantata Singers and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Chatham Chorale. His most recent appearances with The Spectrum Singers were performances of Haydn’s Theresienmesse and Mozart’s Dominican Vespers in November, 2000. Mr. Cleveland has recorded with Boston Baroque in Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride and participated in the Grammy award winning recording of Barber’s opera Antony and Cleopatra with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra and Westminster Choir.
John W. Ehrlich
Founder and Music Director of The Spectrum Singers
John W. Ehrlich, Founder and Music Director of The Spectrum Singers, has been active as a singer and conductor in the Boston and Cambridge areas for more than thirty years. Son of a concert pianist and a microbiologist, Mr. Ehrlich was born in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, and prepared for higher education at Grosse Pointe University School and the New Hampton School. He studied music and conducting while attending the Hartt School of Music, Trinity College, and both Harvard and Boston Universities. His teachers were Robert Shaw, Gregg Smith, G. Wallace Woodworth, Vytautous Marijousius, Iva Dee Hiatt, and Margaret Hillis. Also a singer, Mr. Ehrlich has sung with the Hartford Chamber Choir, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Cambridge Society for Early Music, John Oliver Chorale, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Boston Baroque, and the Emmanuel Church Choir. For eight seasons he was Music Director of The Master Singers of Worcester. This is Mr. Ehrlich’s 22nd season as Music Director of The Spectrum Singers. Roberta Anderson, soprano, has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Canada, winning praise for her “sweet tone” and “exquisitely refined musicianship”. She has been a soloist with the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Early Music Festival, Emmanuel Music, Concerto Köln, Boston Baroque, the Aston Magna Festival, The Spectrum Singers, Cantata Singers, the Boston Camerata, and Coro Allegro. Ms. Anderson may also be heard on numerous recordings, most recently on Emmanuel Music’s newly released Bach Cantatas for the 1st and 2nd Sundays after Trinity.
The Spectrum Singers gave their first concert under Music Director John W. Ehrlich in December of 1980. Mr. Ehrlich chose the group’s name to highlight what he hoped would be the chorus’s primary mission: to perform works from all periods of music history – pre-Renaissance through the present day – at a level of historically-informed professionalism equal to the world’s finest choral ensembles.
From its beginnings, the chorus has embraced “amateur singers” – gifted vocalists who willingly perform without pay. Today, people from all walks of life sing with The Spectrum Singers, many bringing to the chorus significant experience and skills as choral and solo vocal artists. As a result, the chorus has prospered artistically over the last 22 years, and today is widely regarded as one of the finest choral ensembles in the region. In addition to its own annual subscription concert series, the 50-voice chorus has been called upon by composers and other musical ensembles to collaborate in premiere performances of significant choral works and in the concerts of other ensembles. Recent joint ventures have included appearances with the Cantata Singers and The Indian Hill Symphony Orchestra.
The Spectrum Singers are admired for their nimble flexibility in performance of the entire choral spectrum. While renowned for the special skills they bring to very demanding a cappella repertoire, the chorus is also praised for the rich and robust tone and fleet virtuosity it brings to works accompanied by orchestra. Equally of interest is the chorus’s breadth of repertoire. Music Director John W. Ehrlich is widely admired for his intriguing and adventuresome programming. Concerts by The Spectrum Singers regularly offer works of great contrast and compelling resonances.
Now in its 22nd season, The Spectrum Singers and Music Director John W. Ehrlich continue their mission of performing familiar and less-well-known works in programs of compelling depth and professional execution to a broad audience of appreciative listeners.
