Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University, is proud to present Alleluia!, a gala benefit concert at Carnegie Hall on June 29. Featuring over 650 performers from ten states and five countries, this celebration of classic and newly composed Catholic music will unite several of the world’s most esteemed choirs.
The concert will formally launch the Saint Thomas More Center for Music and Liturgy, a major initiative to fuel the creation of new Catholic music, freely disseminate the finest sacred music, and support musical excellence in the worldwide Church. The Center will offer free and open Internet-based access to sheet music and musical instruction, with an emphasis on availability to those who may not otherwise have access to such materials and opportunities.
Choirs from the US and Europe will join to form a 400-voice International Festival Chorus: the Oslo Chamber Choir (Norway), Tapiola Chamber Choir (Finland), Choir of Sidney Sussex College (Cambridge University); singers from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (New York), Saint Joseph’s Cathedral (Hartford), Westminster Choir College, Vassar College, UMass Amherst, and Yale; and the Archdiocesan Children’s Choir of Philadelphia, Nittany Valley Children’s Chorus, and the 150-voice National Children’s Chorus. They will be joined by soloists Karolina Wojteczko and Stuart Neill, a full symphony orchestra, and 180 handbell players, including the Reykjanesbær Music School Bell Choir from Iceland, all conducted by Stephen Layton (Polyphony; Choir of Trinity College Cambridge).
The program will include sacred masterpieces by Bach, Monteverdi, and Bruckner, as well as world premières of new works by Ørjan Matre, Composer in Residence of the Oslo Philharmonic, and Julian Darius Revie, Composer in Residence of the Center for Music and Liturgy. Revie’s Mass of the Divine Shepherd, the first orchestral setting of the revised English Order of Mass instituted by the Vatican in 2011, has been written specifically for this inaugural concert. In this large-scale work, all 600 performers will fill the stage and balconies, enveloping the audience in melodic beauty. Over 200 children will sing from the boxes, and the sound of 600 handbells will float down from the top balconies, bathing the audience in a gentle wash of soft, pure tones as they are guided through a musical journey exploring the mysteries of the Divine Shepherd.
The Center is honored to welcome some of the world’s leaders in music, education, finance, and the Church, including our Honorary Patrons: Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Archbishop Leonard Blair of Hartford, Bishop O’Connell of Trenton, and Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport. We are also proud to welcome leading members of the “Sons of Norway,” who have sponsored the Oslo Chamber Choir’s participation in this project.
Tickets for Alleluia! at Carnegie Hall are available at www.carnegiehall.org. For more information about the Center for Music and Liturgy at Saint Thomas More, please see www.music-and-liturgy.org.