Romantic Sacred Music From Sydney University Graduate Choir And Orchestra
Sydney University Graduate Choir with the Sydney University Graduate Orchestra performs brings you the soaring heights of Romantic music launching its 2018 concert season with performances of Nicolai’s Te Deum and Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42 & Psalm 114.
Composed in 1832, Otto Nicolai’s Te Deum is a large-scale work for six soloists, chorus and orchestra. Today Nicolai is a largely forgotten composer, known mostly for the overture to his opera, The Merry Wives of Windsor. This performance of the Te Deum will show that he is a composer of substance, worth rediscovering.
The Sydney University Graduate Choir is delighted to also perform two more works by Felix Mendelssohn, both settings of Psalms that were heavily influenced by his passion for the music of Bach. Written in 1837, Mendelssohn described Psalm 42 (“Wie der Hirsch schreit” As pants the Hart) as “my best sacred work”. He was not alone in this assessment. After a performance of the work at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig in 1838, Schumann wrote that “Mendelssohn has attained his highest evolution as church composer”.
Psalm 114, (“Da Israel aus Ägypten zog” When Israel came from Egypt’s land) dating from 1841, is equally impressive. Composed for double chorus, this work concludes with a mighty 8-part fugue that will sound magnificent in the vaulted acoustic of Sydney University’s Great Hall.
The dynamic Sydney University Graduate Choir music director, Christopher Bowen OAM, leads this performance of the Sydney University Graduate Choir and Orchestra, which will mark his 26th year as Music Director.
The line-up for this concert includes six gifted soloists, sopranos Elke Hooke and Angela Lim, mezzo-soprano Keara Donohoe, tenors Joshua Oxley and Tony Suryanthono and bass David Hidden. Joshua Oxley was winner of the 2017 Joan Carden Award, hosted by the Sydney University Graduate Choir.
The programme: Otto Nicolai Te Deum, 1832/ Felix Mendelssohn Psalm 42, Opus 42 and Psalm 114, Opus 51
The performers: Music Director: Christopher Bowen OAM/ Elke Hooke (Soprano)/ Angela Lim (Soprano)/Keara Donohoe (Mezzo-soprano)
Joshua Oxley (Tenor)/Tony Suryanthono (Tenor)/David Hidden (Bass). Sydney University Graduate Choir/ Sydney University Graduate Orchestra
Tickets: $50 adults, Pensioners (no Seniors Card) $45/ Children 16 and under, full-time students $25
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