West Village Chorale 2023-24 Season
Thank you for joining us this season!
We look forward to welcoming you when we kick off 2024-25 with our first concert of the new season in December.
Unless otherwise noted, concerts and events take place at (or start from) Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South (at Thompson Street), NYC. Accessible entrance is available around the corner at 243 Thompson Street.
Earlier this season…
Strings Attached
Sunday, June 2nd, 2024 at 5:00pm
Our final concert of the season features a variety of contemporary music for choir, strings and piano.
The program includes Jake Runestad‘s uplifting The Hope of Loving, Alex Berko‘s Sacred Place, a stirring anthem to natural beauty, and pieces by two past Pulitzer Prize winners—David Lang‘s powerful and pointed the national anthems, and Caroline Shaw‘s instrumental miniature Entr’acte.
We are also thrilled to present the the world premiere of WVC Artistic Director Colin Britt‘s So Also We Sing, originally composed for the Maine bicentennial in 2020.
Meet our Soloists
Shabnam Abedi, Soprano
A highly sought after soprano and recent addition to The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Shabnam Abedi received her Master’s Degree from Juilliard in Jazz Studies making her Juilliard’s first South-Asian American jazz voice graduate. A versatile artist with a reputation for high-level music making in a wide variety of genres, Shabnam also studied opera at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Having played and sung Indian Classical Music since young, Shabnam’s first album “Amar Bijon Ghore” was released to wide acclaim in South Asia. Shabnam was recognized by the New York Times for her solo in Trinity’s Handel’s Messiah this year, as well as a soloist in Considering Matthew Shepard, and sang at the New York premiere of Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light at the Park Avenue Armory. She is one of the six women in Voces8 Foundation’s new treble ensemble Lyyra and her debut jazz album Love Shadows is set to release this summer.
Dann Coakwell, Tenor
Dann Coakwell, tenor, has been praised as a “clear-voiced and eloquent … vivid storyteller” (The New York Times), with “a gorgeous lyric tenor that could threaten or caress on the turn of a dime” (The Dallas Morning News). He can be heard as a soloist on the Grammy-winning The Sacred Spirit of Russia (Harmonia Mundi 2014), as well as multiple other Grammy-nominated albums, the critically praised Bruhns: Cantatas and Organ Works, Vol. 1 (BIS 2022), and Mohammed Fairouz: Zabur (Naxos 2016). Coakwell has sung across Europe, Japan, and throughout the Americas, under renowned conductors such as Helmuth Rilling, Masaaki Suzuki, Monica Huggett, William Christie, Nicholas McGegan, the late John Scott, Matthew Halls, María Guinand, and Craig Hella Johnson. Having performed in prominent venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, he has also appeared with acclaimed organizations such as Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart in Germany, Bach Collegium Japan, Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Canada, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco, Oregon Bach Festival, Portland and Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Dallas Bach Society, Conspirare, and the symphony orchestras of Orlando, Charlotte, Nashville, Indianapolis, Quad Cities, and Kansas City. Serving on the voice faculty at Ithaca College, Dr. Coakwell also appears nationally and abroad as a guest teaching artist.
www.danncoakwell.com
Justin Beck, Bass-Baritone
Bass-baritone Justin Beck has had a varied career both as an opera and concert soloist. He studied music with a focus on vocal performance at the University of Texas at Austin, and Texas State University. He was a Young Artist at Austin Lyric Opera for two seasons singing roles in Gounod’s Faust, Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, and Verdi’s Rigoletto. He also spent two summers at the Aspen Music Festival in their Opera Theater Center. Additional opera credits include three seasons with Opera Company of Middlebury in Vermont performing in Massenet’s Thaïs, Puccini’s La rondine, and Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. Other favorite roles include Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Dr. Falke & Frank in J. Strauss Jr.’s Die Fledermaus, both with Opera Manhattan.
Concert soloist highlights include Handel’s Messiah with the Austin Symphony, Berlioz’s Requiem with the Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus under the baton of Robert Spano, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the National Chorale in Avery Fisher Hall, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with the Bard Music Festival, R. Strauss’s Feuersnot with the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein at Carnegie Hall, and most recently Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël with the Hudson Chorale. Additional soloist engagements include concerts with West Village Chorale, Long Island Masterworks and Gregg Smith Singers.
Would You Harbor Me?
Sunday March 3rd and Sunday March 10th, 2024 at 5:00pm
The West Village Chorale and the New York City Master Chorale are proud to collaborate on Would You Harbor Me?—a concert seeking to uplift marginalized and underrepresented voices through choral music.
Through a program of separate and shared pieces, we hope to use songs to highlight the stories of individuals and communities and to show how the act of singing together can inspire us to break down dividing walls.
Join us to hear both traditional and contemporary works from remarkable composers including Ysaye Barnwell, Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, Marques L.A. Garrett, Sarah Rimkus, and Bob Dylan, and from musicals Ragtime and La Cage aux Folles. It continues to be a rewarding process to prepare these pieces, and we are excited for the opportunity this music gives us to bring together our communities and center both our shared and unique humanity.
A Light of Hope, A Song of Peace
Sunday, December 17th, 2023 at 3:30pm
Advance Tickets: $30 general/$20 student
At the Door: $35 general/$$25 student
As we approach the shortest day of the year, come celebrate the light and warmth of the season with the West Village Chorale’s annual holiday concert! In addition to reprising several festive favorites from years past, the program features gorgeous arrangements of beloved secular and sacred carols, as well as new favorites from many traditions, ornamented by the Calliope Brass quintet. You’ll even get the chance to sing along on a few numbers!
From our Assistant Conductor Rong Zhang’s program notes:
We are so glad you can celebrate this festive time of year with us!
The song that gives its title to our concert, Mark Burrows’ “A Light of Hope, a Song of Peace,” sets the atmosphere for this evening’s program. This particular choice holds significance for me, as I grappled with profound loss during the challenging days of the pandemic when my grandmother passed away. With global restrictions preventing my return to China, I found solace in something my grandfather said: he reminded me gently that I am the light of hope within our family. It is this sentiment that reverberates through Burrows’ composition, a source of comfort and a wish for inner peace that I extend to each of you.
Rehearsing and singing holiday pieces can create and strengthen a sense of community, which is so important during a time of crises around the world. Our wishes to find and pass on comfort and peace extend through a number of today’s works, including the gorgeous Sephardic lullaby “Durme, Durme” and Dan Forrest’s reflective meditation on “The First Noel.” Moses Hogan’s arrangement of the traditional spiritual “Hold Out Your Light” and Bernice Johnson Reagon’s celebratory Kwanzaa work “Seven Principles” urge us to be a source of light and joy to our larger community.
Along with the Christmas and Hanukkah favorites “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “I Saw Three Ships,” and “S’Vivon,” we are excited to share contemporary (and unexpected!) arrangements of classics “Deck the Hall” and “Jingle Bells.”
We hope our music can transcend the stage, connecting us all in a shared embrace of hope, love, joy, and the promise of brighter days ahead.
Thank you for joining us!
View our complete concert program
🍂A Fall Choral Harvest🍂
Sunday, November 5th, 2023 at 3:30pm*
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South (at Thompson Street)
As the days grow shorter and winter nears, “A Fall Choral Harvest” celebrates gratitude, harvest, and choral Americana. In addition to long-beloved compositions by Aaron Copland, Shawn Kirchner, and Frank Ticheli, the program also introduces newer pieces by Colin Britt and Dale Trumbore. Interspersed between choral works will be four-hand piano selections by Amy Beach and Leonard Bernstein, featuring Colin Britt and the WVC’s incomparable pianist Elena Belli.
*be sure to turn your clocks back on the day of the concert! 🙂