Performance History
2023 Music by George Walker, Nathaniel Dett, W.A. Mozart, and F.J. Haydn Torrential rains greeted our audience as they “streamed” in the door at Hochstein Performance Hall for our 20th anniversary celebration concert, July 23, 4:00 PM. The hardy and dedicated audience enjoyed the Festival Orchestra in “Lyric for Strings,” by George Walker, the first Black recipient of a doctoral degree at the Eastman School of Music, and the Festival Chorus rendition of “O Holy Lord,” by R. Nathaniel Dett, the first Black graduate of Eastman. Festival accompanist, Ines Draskovic, offered a brilliant performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor. After intermission, the chorus and soloists Gwen Paker, soprano, Pablo Willey-Bustos, tenor, and Steven M. Warnock, baritone, gave a spirited performance of arias, ensembles, and choruses from Haydn’s secular oratorio “The Seasons: Spring and Summer.” Eric Townell conducted. Wonderful fun!
2022 Handel, Mozart Beethoven, Finzi, and more Handel!
We managed a two-concert season this summer as a catch-up from previous restrictions. Our grant funding had to be used! Everything came together in a hurry, but with some very satisfying results. Since our usual performance venue was closed for renovation, we moved all of our performances to Hale Auditorium at Roberts Wesleyan College, a little west of downtown Rochester. This is a beautifully equipped, large theater with good acoustics and fine facilities for the performers. Our orchestra and chorus performed a suite of music from Handel’s opera, Alcina, to open the program. Pianist INES DRASKOVIC joined us then for Finzi’s beautifully serene Eclogue for Piano and Strings, which she played surpassingly well. We closed with Vivaldi’s Gloria, with sopranos SANDRA GODWIN and LUANNE CROSBY, and mezzo soprano GABRIELLE LABARE. It turned out well, especially given the very compressed rehearsal schedule, and the orchestra was outstanding. Congrats to all concerned! July brought us a good new version of the Star Spangled Banner, arranged by FLCF founding conductor, Adrian Horn. INES DRASKOVIC was the soloist in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy next, a real highlight. The second half opened with Mozart’s Symphony No. 32, the Overture in Italian Style, followed by five choruses from Handel’s oratorio, Solomon, with music-related texts, all very rousing, elegant, beautiful, and majestic pieces. Seven voices fulfilled the role of Choir I in the double chorus movements: LUANNE CROSBY, SANDRA GODWIN, GABRIELLE LABARE, SARAH ENGEL, JOSHUA CARLISLE, NICK NOVELLIN, and FRANCOIS BESSING. Congratulations to all!
2021 Beethoven at 251!
Pandemic restrictions prohibited us from celebrating Beethoven’s major anniversary in 2020, so we partied a year late with chamber music and the majestic Mass in C Major. INES DRASKOVIC, pianist and festival accompanist, performed Beethoven’s Sonata in D Major, Op. 10 No. 3. Together with ELA KODZAS, violin, and SAMUEL BOUNDY, cello, Ms. Draskovic offered the “Ghost” Trio, Op. 70 No. 1 in D Major. Festival singers, family and friends convened outdoors at Highland Bowl to perform the Mass on Saturday, July 24, then moved indoors for a second performance on July 25 at Asbury First United Methodist Church. Soprano LUANNE CROSBY, mezzo-soprano ALEXIS PEART, tenor JOSHUA BOUILLON and bass HOLDEN TURNER were the soloists. Eric Townell conducted.
2020’s activities moved online with Second Saturday Sings. FLCF members, guests and friends gathered virtually for rehearsals, vocal technique and sing-throughs of Beethoven’s “Mass in C” in preparation for the 2021 performances.
2019 Puccini’s “Messa di Gloria”
Eric Townell conducted a varied program of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor with Ines Draskovic as soloist; the Hungarian March from Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust,” and Puccini’s beautifully Romantic Mass for Four Voices, all accompanied by the Festival Orchestra. Soloists were Kyle Knapp and Fredrick Redd.
2018 Choral Festival – Berlioz Requiem Redux
We revisited this great masterwork using Adrian Horn’s newly revised adaptation. Andy was pleased with the results, so we can look for choruses around the country to put this version to work. Eric Townell conducted, tenor Daniel McInerney reprised his famous Sanctus, and members of the Penfield Symphony Orchestra with auxiliary brass excelled in the demanding score and in the Hungarian March from Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust,” which opened the concert. Choristers from Long Island to Buffalo joined FLCF in the final week, having prepared independently. More than 600 attended the free performance. A great afternoon to remember!
2017 Choral Festival – “When Love Goes Wrong”
“When Love Goes Wrong” was probably the best received concert in the history of FLCF, and arguably one of the most exciting choral/vocal concerts to be performed locally in years. We have heard from so many in attendance in such stunning superlatives, that posting them here would dilute their eloquence. Suffice it to say that it all came together in a way few of us could have imagined. “Stoked” is a word that come to mind. We performed some of the most exciting and memorable music of Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Saint Saens, Purcell, Grieg, Bizet, and even Wagner, featuring selections from Lucia di Lammermoor, Samson, Tosca, Aida, Il Trovatore, Otello, Carmen, Dido & Aeneas, Faust, and as a respite from the heart-wrenching drama of end-to-end love disasters, we added the glorious and redemptive final scenes of Turandot and Tannhauser. Every selection was met with thunderous applause, standing ovations and shouts of bravo. Many of our participants and audience members are still humming tunes weeks after the concert!
2016 Choral Festival – Verdi Requiem
Full house, extraordinary soloists, great orchestra, brilliant chorus, soaring performances, totally stoked audience, musicians and singers–many in tears. Absolutely and unequivocally, this was our best concert ever!
2015 Choral Festival – Mozart Grand Mass in C Minor
We performed the sublime and mysterious Grand Mass in C Minor at Hochstein Performance Hall on July 19, at 4PM, then members of the chorus flew to Hawaii to join forces with the Maui Chamber Orchestra and the Maui Masterworks Chorale for a repeat performance on August 2, at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center.
Many have asked about our trip. It was an incredible experience that none of us will soon forget. We had it all! Sun and surf, trips to Iao Valley, Maui Ocean Center, Lahaina, Haleakala’s 10,000 ft. summit, the Road to Hana, snorkeling, a ukelele welcome at the airport, more leis that you can imagine, an incredible concert with incredible people before a gorgeous concert hall filled with a wildly enthusiastic audience, followed by an outdoor dinner with nearly 200 singers, musicians and our generous and welcoming hosts. You couldn’t buy this experience for any amount of money. Just the luau on our last night would have been worth coming for.
2014 Choral Festival – Brilliant Bach
Our concert on Sunday, July 27, was a rousing success. Hochstein Performance Hall was filled to near capacity with the largest audience seen for a choral concert in recent years, and the chorus, orchestra and soloists were spectacular! We performed the magnificent Magnificat, joyous Cantata #191 (Gloria in Excelsis), Jauchzet frohlocket from the Christmas Oratorio, and the lofty final chorus from B Minor Mass (Dona nobis pacem) and again were able to offer this concert free to the community, thanks to the generosity of our singers and donors. The concert was sponsored in part by Wegmans.
2013 Choral Festival – Grieg’s “Peer Gynt”Edvard Grieg’s brilliant Peer Gynt Suites are known to virtually everyone, but many do not know that they are taken from the seldom performed Incidental Music to Henrik Ibsen’s dramatic poem Peer Gynt. Our unique adaptation of this musical fantasy had it all: predation, betrayal, sex, humor, chicanery, love, redemption, and the warm glow of a sappy ending. Also on the program was Antonin Dvorak’s stunning setting of Stabat Mater, a mighty work with the power to transport the listener to the Gates of Paradise.
2012 – The Berlioz Requiem Revisited, this time in San Francisco: In a unique partnership of over 300 singers and musicians from New York and San Francisco, the combined Finger Lakes Choral Festival, Redwood Symphony and augmented San Francisco Lyric Chorus presented a spectacular program, featuring the Berlioz Requiem, on August 5, at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, the home of the San Francisco Symphony. The concert was hailed by San Francisco Classical Voice as the “Mega-Concert of the Year. Or Years!” And further added that the program “Exceeded all expectations.” Many singers and musicians reported that this performance was the musical highlight of their lives.
2011 – St. Matthew Passion
Continuing on a quest to perform the world’s greatest choral works, one by one, we went to the heart of superlative music this summer to perform Bach’s towering St. Matthew Passion – – only this time in a ground-breaking new version tailored to replicate the experience of Bach’s original audience. The performance was in English, with most of the recitatives converted into spoken narratives. This gave clarity to the story line and focused attention on the arias and choruses that make the Passion one the most profound musical works ever written. And the program again was offered with no admission charge as our musical gift to the community.
2010 – The Berlioz Requiem
Searching for the right words to describe our two performances of the Grande Messe des Morts, “WOW!” seemed the most appropriate. Judging from the responses of the near-capacity audiences at Hochstein Performance Hall, it was an emotional tour de force, with reactions ranging from awe at the sheer power of this magnificent work, to tears from the stunning beauty of its quieter moments. And the ending – – WHAT an ending! A haunting, ethereal wisp of sound that floated weightlessly into eternity.
2009 – Beethoven Missa Solemnis
So many great choral works – so little time! With this in mind, we went right to the top of the short list to take on the challenge of performing possibly the greatest choral work of all, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis – – a towering masterpiece that bursts at the seams with unforgettable power, pathos and soul-searing beauty. Performances took place on Saturday, July 25 at 8 PM and Sunday, July 26 at 4 PM, at Hochstein Performance Hall in Rochester. We hope you were able to hear this seldom performed majestic work. Beethoven himself thought it to be his finest effort and inscribed on the title page, “From the heart, may it in turn return to the heart.”
2008 – Beethoven Rocks!
This was a powerful All-Beethoven program, featuring seldom performed works from the Ruins of Athens, King Stephan and more, plus the Choral Fantasy and Ode to Joy movement of the Ninth Symphony. Performances were held at Hochstein Performance Hall on June 29, and at Chautauqua Institution on July 26, our fifth year in a row to be invited to sing at this world-class venue before another audience of 5000. An excerpt of a review of the concert from the Daily Chautauquan follows:
“The all-Beethoven program presented by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra Saturday night at the Amphitheater was anything but routine. In fact, for a concert devoted to arguably the biggest of the so-called three B’s, this one was practically wild. Not that the performances were out of control. On the contrary, the CSO, music director Stefan Sanderling, the Finger Lakes Choral Festival and the many guest artists who joined them were, for the most part, paragons of musical virtue.”
2007 – OUR DEVILISHLY EXCITING PROGRAM – FAUST, CARMINA & THE NINTH
We raised the roof at Hochstein Performance Hall on Saturday, July 28, and Sunday, July 29, with a rollicking celebration of earthly pleasures and capricious fate and blew the audience away with the devilishly exciting final scenes from the Faustian operas of Berlioz and Boito. As advertised, our massive chorus took that pulse-pounding ride through Pandemonium and emerged triumphant over the forces of evil in the breathtaking, jaw-dropping finale. Comments like: the best, the most exciting, amazing, exhilarating concert they ever heard. One woman in the audience said that it was even better than chocolate!
On August 18, as an encore to our 2007 season, the Choral Festival once again visited Chautauqua Institution, this time to sing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Uri Segal’s farewell performance as regular conductor of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. The historic amphitheater, pictured above, was packed to the gills with over 6,000 enthralled spectators, and when the music stopped, there was an explosion of cheers that rocked the gentility of this peaceful oasis of art and culture. It was electric!
2006 – Beethoven and Mozart
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Saturday, July 8, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, to celebrate the opening of the new state of the art CMAC Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua.
Mozart Grand Mass in C Minor, Saturday, July 29, at Chautauqua Institution, with an additional performance on Thursday, July 27, at Hochstein Performance Hall in Rochester. Not only did we have the privilege of performing at the RPO’s inaugural concert at the brand spanking new spectacular 5000 seat Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua, we performed at Chautauqua Institution again. This was our third year in a row to be invited to perform at this idyllic summer oasis of art and culture. Interesting factoid: with combined CMAC and Chautauqua audiences totaling over 7,000 in 2006, the Choral Festival has performed before almost 20,000 concert goers in just four short years.
2005 – Verdi Requiem at Chautauqua Institution
After stirring performances of the Brahms Requiem at Chautauqua Institution in 2004 (see comments below) and the Verdi Requiem with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra at the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center in 2003, it was a challenge to come up with a program to match these exhilarating experiences – – but we did!
It was a day few will forget, with an afternoon rehearsal in the historic Amphitheater, surrounded by brilliant sunshine with temperatures in the upper 70’s, followed by a sumptuous buffet dinner for singers and their guests in the Victorian splendor of the Athenaeum Hotel, an hour or two for a leisurely stroll on the timeless Institution grounds, an then a magnificent performance under the sparkling stars over crystal clear Chautauqua Lake.
Nearly 300 voices of the combined Finger Lakes Choral Festival and Rochester Oratorio Society shimmered in the night air with the haunting strains of “Requiem aeternum” and then exploded into the roof-raising “Dies irae,” thrilling the audience of over 4000 appreciative music lovers. Glowing comments abounded after a performance, under the direction of internationally acclaimed conductor, Uri Segal, that was nothing less than spectacular. As reviewed by the Chautauquan Daily: “This vibrant and beautiful performance of Verdi’s masterpiece will rank as the outstanding event of this summer’s Chautauqua Symphony season.”
2004 – Brahms Requiem with the RPO and at Chautauqua
“Peak experience” and other superlatives were in the air at the conclusion of the 2004 Finger Lakes Choral Festival. After an inspirational performance of the Brahms Requiem on July 25, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, we didn’t think there could be a more exciting encore – – but we were wrong!
On July 31, the chorus traveled to historic Chautauqua Institution for a repeat performance as part of a 465-voice, massed chorus of singers from the Choral Festival, symphony choruses from Buffalo and Erie, and a Chautauqua regional chorus. The legendary Chautauqua Amphitheater drew an audience of well over 4,000. Now that was an experience we won’t soon forget!
2003 – Debut performance: Verdi Requiem with the RPO
The newly formed Finger Lakes Choral Festival created an instantaneous sensation on the local music scene by drawing together 200 singers from over 50 regional communities, including visitors from a dozen states and countries, to stage a rousing performance of Verdi’s great masterpiece at the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
