American Voices, Classic and New

This program of American music is a combination of old favorites and new pieces. Barber’s Reincarnations was last on a New Amsterdam Singers program in 2008, sung by the Chamber Chorus, who will sing it again.

We first sang Copland’s In the Beginning in 1980 when we put together an all-Copland 80th Birthday Celebration, attended by the composer. Since it is a great work and a choral showpiece, we have programmed it periodically over the decades and look forward to performing it again. The piece features soprano soloist Sonya Headlam. Ms. Headlam enjoys a varied career as a soloist, chamber, and ensemble singer in a diverse range of repertoire from the Baroque period to the 21st century. She is a member of the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and performs regularly with the Vocalis Consort and the Raritan Players. She joins the Raritan Players on the recently released recording, In the Salon of Madame Brillon (Acis, 2021). Season 2021–2022 appearances include performances with TENET Vocal Artists, the New York Philharmonic, Apollo’s Fire, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and as a soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor at the Grand Rapids Bach Festival. Sonya received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she currently holds a visiting scholar appointment doing research on the eighteenth-century composer, Ignatius Sancho.

The program will also include a piece by the esteemed American composer Adolphus Hailstork, and the chorus will perform a work by Undine Smith Moore for the first time. The Chamber Chorus will sing a challenging work by Andrew Rindfleisch that is new to us: Careless Carols on a text by Tagore. Other new works are an arrangement by Ron Perera of e.e. cummings’ poem, as freedom is a breakfast food, originally for women, now for four voices, and Harlem Night Song by Tara Mack, an alumna of New Amsterdam Singers. The last of the new pieces is a delightful work by Dale Trumbore, who is a young composer making her name in the American choral world. In the Middle is a tender, funny, rueful look at middle age in our time.

You can hear our conductor, Clara Longstreth, talk about the program by clicking HERE.

You can hear Ellen Stark speak with Tara Mack, whose composition Harlem Night Song is on the program, by clicking HERE.

Tickets are on sale now.

All NAS singers and staff are fully vaccinated. All audience members will be asked to provide proof of vaccination and to remain masked throughout the performance.

The same program will also be presented on Friday, March 18th, 2022, at 8PM. The Sunday, March 20th concert is also available as an online stream.