June 2024
Carmina Burana
Composed in 1936 by Carl Orff, Carmina Burana is based on 24 poems of the medieval “Carmina Burana”. They cover a wide range of topics, as familiar in the 13th century as they are in the 21st: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of spring and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust. Performed in a version with two pianos and tympani.
March 2024
Missa per Concordiam
Ars Choralis presented the U.S. premiere of Eric Delson’s Missa per Concordiam, written for the Brussels Choral Society in commemoration of Delson’s 20th year as Musical Director. Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic gestures can be found throughout, lending the work a historical grounding while bringing ‘concordant’ harmonies to the traditional mass structure and promoting harmony and unity among people.
December 2023
Let Our Love Be Heard
Ars Choralis, The City of Kingston, and the Old Dutch Church were proud to present a New Year’s Eve Program Let Our Love Be Heard. In keeping with an Ars Choralis tradition of offering programs on December 31st that have themes of peace, respect for one another and inclusiveness, this year’s concert showcased the challenges people have when they have nowhere to turn and the importance of community in supporting one another.
December 2023
Welcome Yule: Magnificent Magnificats
Ars Choralis’s annual Welcome Yule program features Bach’s Magnificat in D Major and other settings by Rachmaninoff, Pärt, Ešenvalds, Hirten, and Buxtehude, with soloists and orchestra.
December 2023
Hot Chocolate
Hot Chocolate is based on the book “Hot Chocolate Weather” by American author Elizabeth Castro. In this free concert, designed for children, the story is told in words and pictures with the help of Ars Choralis singers and the Bennett School Jazz Band.
June 2023
Brahms Requiem
Ars Choralis presented Brahms’ masterful Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) in English with a new arrangement for chamber orchestra.
March 2023
Concert of Solace
Ars Choralis presented this concert in memory of those who lost their lives and in support of the survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
March 2023
Freedom: In Their Voices
This program honors composers of African descent whose music has been sidelined for decades and, in some cases, centuries. Ars Choralis was joined by baritone Steven Kirby, the Riverview Missionary Baptist Church Instruments of Praise Choir, and performance artist Nancy Ostrovsky.
December 2022
Forward Together
A free New Year’s Eve Celebration presented by Ars Choralis, The City of Kingston and the Old Dutch Church explored the challenges that many people face as they weave themselves into the fabric of American society, enriching it with their culture and helping to move us all forward together. Langston Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again” was the centerpiece.
December 2022
Wondrous Mystery
Exploring the mysterious musical expression of Christmas, Ars Choralis offered music from the Middle Ages to contemporary composers.
July 2022
A Prayer for Ukraine
A video offering reminding us that the struggle against tyranny by the people of Ukraine goes on even when it no longer captures the headlines. Their battle for freedom and self-government continues. Let us not forget them.
Watch and listen HERE
June 2022
Summer Serenade:
A Solstice Celebration of Planet Earth
The musical celebration of the Summer Solstice was presented on the lawn at the Comeau Property in the town of Woodstock. Through words and song we hailed the wonders of the natural world along with a tribute to Stephen Sondheim.
April 2022
Mozart in the Spring
After two years of shut-down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we return to presenting live choral music in a triumphant performance of Mozart’s Vespera solennes de confessore with soloist and orchestra.
December 2021
Hold On: A Concert of Hope and Resilience
A New Year’s Eve virtual concert featuring best-selling author Elizabeth Lesser sharing a message of hope and resilience along with newly-recorded songs and readings to usher in the new year. Watch and listen here.
December 2021
Welcome Yule: The Ballad of the Brown King
A recorded performance on November 20th, 2021 of Margaret Bonds’s Cantata, The Ballad of the Brown King with soloists, piano and chorus and featuring the pastor of Riverview Baptist Church in Kingston, NY reading from Langston Hughes, “Black Nativity.” Watch and listen here.
June 2021
Fauré Requiem
Four choruses, from Belgium, Italy, NY City and Woodstock, join together in this virtual presentation to perform the Fauré Requiem to remember, with gratitude, the front-line workers who have risked their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic and to honor the millions of people throughout the world who have lost their lives to the virus. Watch and listen here.
December 2020
New Day Dawning: Awakening the Promise of America
Continuing the tradition of offering concerts of hope and unity on New Year’s Eve, this virtual concert based on Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again” showcases readings from prominent, multi-cultural civil rights leaders and exposes racism in America with hope and encouragement for equality and common respect for one another. Watch and listen here.
December 2020
Welcome Yule: Imagining Peace
A virtual performance based on Maya Angelou’s “Amazing Peace”, read by Gilles Malkine, interspersed with songs that express our yearning for peace and goodwill through songs such as “Quiet Place” and “It’s Time to Remember the Poor” and with visuals to enhance the message of the words and music. Watch and listen here.
April 2020
A Virtual Concert of Hope, Love and Courage
In response to the onset of the Covid Pandemic crisis around the world, and the shutdown of “normal” life – concerts, live music, restaurants, etc., – we present our first online concert. We hope the beauty of the music and images, melded with words of love and encouragement, will fill your heart with renewed confidence in the promise of tomorrow. Watch and listen here.
December 2019
We All Come From Somewhere
A benefit for the Ulster Immigrant Defense Network highlighting that most Americans came from somewhere else once upon a time, and that all have contributed to the great tapestry that is American culture.
December 2019
Welcome Yule: It’s a Wonderful Life Reimagined
A choral adaptation of the familiar Jimmy Stewart film which includes the cultural and religious diversity of the 40s in the dialogue, music and visuals.
June 2019
Bach and His World
The contrasting styles and moods of Bach’s world, all in one concert.
March 2019
The Poets Speak: Mending a Broken World
Ars Choralis sings of resilience and hope in response to pain and suffering in a concert inspired by the South African word “ubuntu” (the concept of common humanity, oneness) and the Somalian proverb “If we come together, we can mend a crack in the sky.”
December 2018
The Road to Bethlehem
A reimagined musical version of the Christmas Story written by composer Barbara Pickhardt and lyricist Johanna Hall
December 2018
Singing the Spirit of the Season
A holiday celebration of words and music inspired by Native American values of honesty, integrity, gratitude and respect for the sacredness of all life.
June 2018
Bernstein Remembered
Bernstein’s music, imbued with his love of music and people, expressed in a concert dedicated to his brilliance and enduring legacy of love.
March 2018
Lincoln, Lamp of Liberty
A concert upholding the legacy of the venerated sixteenth president of the United State through poetry and tAmerica music spanning two centuries.
June 2017
Music of Haydn and Copland
Featuring Haydn’s Mass for Troubled Times (Lord Nelson Mass), his Cello Concerto #1, and selections from Copland’s Old American Songs, including Simple Gifts, Long Time Ago, Ching-a-Ring-Chaw and At the River.
March 2017
Into the Light
Performing works of women composers of the last millennium, many of whom have been neglected in performance for centuries. Composers included Princess Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine, Williametta Spencer, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Lili Boulanger and Pauline Oliveros, among many others. Three movements from “The World Beloved:A Bluegrass Mass” by Carol Barnett were performed with bluegrass accompaniment.
December 2016
Welcome Yule: Peace in the Midst of War
We commemorated the remarkable story of the World War I Christmas truce, interspersing carols sung by the soldiers and music by German and British composers with descriptions drawn from soldiers’ letters home.
June 2016
Música Hispánica: Then and Now
Featuring Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla and a wide variety of Spanish- and Portuguese-language music throughout the ages.
April 2016
Dona Nobis Pacem
We sang Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 1936 peace cantata Dona Nobis Pacem, accompanied by piano and string orchestra. An assortment of Vaughan Williams folk songs for strings and voice opened the concert.
December 2015
Welcome Yule: Sing Joy!
Featuring Bob Hurd’s Misa del Pueblo Inmigrante, a charming Mummer’s Play, Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria, Eric Whitacre’s Alleluia, and Franz Schubert’s Benedictus es, Domine — with many other joys besides.
June 2015
Mozart Requiem
We celebrated the peak of our 50th season, and the beginning of the Maverick Concert Hall’s 100th season, by performing Mozart’s hauntingly brilliant Requiem with chamber orchestra and vocal solists at the Maverick.
April 2015
Music in Desperate Times: Remembering the Women’s Orchestra of Birkenau
The first full performances of MDT since 2009 were presented at Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie and Woodstock Jewish Congregation.
New Year’s Eve 2014
Messengers of Peace
This special program of music and spoken word at Old Dutch Church, Kingston, was offered as a gift to the community. Our audience generously donated over $1300 to support Caring Hands Soup Kitchen in Kingston.
December 2014
Welcome Winter, Welcome Yule
The 19th annual celebration of the season continued the tradition of combining diverse styles of music into a single musical fabric. The music ranged from Henry Purcell’s harrowing “The Cold Song,” through the warmth of hearth and friendship in “Winter’s Coming Home” by the monks of Weston Priory, to the whimsy of P. D. Q. Bach’s “O Little Town of Hackensack” and “Good King Kong Looked Out” — to name a few.
June 2014
Catskill Echoes
A concert celebrating the Hudson Valley’s Musical Legacy, including 19th century shape note songs of Lewis Edson and Lewis Edson Jr. of Shady, Native American prayer and music, music inspired by historical events, folk music of Camp Woodland, music written by Ernest Williams of the Saugerties Band Camp, and compositions of celebrated musicians and performers who have made the Catskill Mountains their home.
March 2014
J.S. Bach Plus
An all-baroque music concert featuring the chorus, soloists and the Ars Choralis Chamber Ensemble performing Bach’s Cantatas Nos. 61 and 191; Erica Pickhardt playing his unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor; and Voices of Tomorrow honoree soprano Libby Sokolowski singing Sheep May Safely Graze from his Cantata No. 208. Additional works by Buxtehude, Lotti, Graun, and Giacomo Puccini completed the program.
December 2013
Miracle in Bethlehem
World premiere of Barbara Pickhardt’s and Johanna Hall’s Miracle in Bethlehem. Performed for overflowing audiences at Overlook Methodist Church in Woodstock, NY, this musical telling of the Christmas story featured the 45-voice chorus, 14 soloists and a chamber ensemble of violin, cello, piano, percussion, flute and trumpet.
November 2013
75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht Commemoration
As part of the Big Read program organized by the Poughkeepsie Public Library, Ars Choralis performed excerpts from the Music in Desperate Times program at the Bardavon Theatre in Poughkeepsie.
June 2013
Carmina Burana
Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana was performed outdoors in the amphitheater of the Opus 40 Sculpture Park by a full complement of choristers, soloists, children’s choir, duo-pianists and percussionists. The extraordinary artistic and natural beauty of Opus 40 and the imaginative use of its many levels and unusual singing locations made for a uniquely dramatic performance of Orff’s celebrated masterpiece.
March 2013
The Road to Freedom: A Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.
In celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ars Choralis performed “The Road to Freedom,” a concert of remembrance. The concert followed in the words and music tradition of earlier Ars Choralis concerts. Narrators read poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Langston Hughes and excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermons, speeches, and “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Songs, interspersed among the readings, were performed by Ars Choralis and guests, The Riverview Missionary Baptist Church Choir, Nashville soul singer Jonell Mosser, and 12-year-old Carmen Higuita. The concert also premiered three songs inspired by Norman Rockwell’s illustrations of events occurring during the Civil Rights written by Tony nominee Jim Wann. The concert attracted hundreds of people to Riverview Church in Kingston and The Woodstock Jewish Congregation in Woodstock to honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to help Riverview Missionary Baptist Church rebuild after a devastating flood from Hurricane Sandy. Read a review here.
December 2012
Welcome Yule Gloria! Gloria!
The seventeenth annual Ars Choralis Welcome Yule Concert featured three centuries of “Glorias.” The concert opened with the “Gloria” from Gounod’s 18th-century St. Cecilia Mass for tenor solo, chorus, brass quartet and organ. From the seventeen century, the chorus sang Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria with soloists Christina Gardner, Kimberly Horn and Wendy Lowe and the Eribeth Chamber Ensemble. Twentieth century composer Francis Poulenc’s celebrated Gloria with soprano soloist Amy Martin and pianist Kristen Tuttman completed the program.
June 2012
Wings of Hope
Ars Choralis turned back the clock to the 1940s for Wings of Hope and combined music and words to tell the fascinating story of the historic Berlin Airlift, the first humanitarian mission carried out by air. The true-life accounts of the men who served in the effort, their wives back home and the people of Berlin were interspersed with music. In the musical spirit of the 1940s, Ars Choralis sang a hit parade of songs. Got-to-Lindy dancers were featured swinging to the tunes of the Big Blue Big Band.
March 2012
Winter Lights
Inspired by the Aurora Borealis, director Barbara Pickhardt created a musical light show of psalms and Sacred Harp songs, Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms,” and St. Patrick’s Day highlights, featuring the Catskill Mountain Renaissance Consort. An array of young talents added luster to the performance: the Woodstock Elementary Chorus, “Voices of Tomorrow” 2012 honoree Katelyn Noecker, boy soprano Morgan Camara, and 12-year-old step-dancer Anna Tuttman.
December 2011
Welcome Yule: A Tale of Two Christmases
Set in jolly old England, centuries apart, A Tale of Two Christmases visited the courts of two noted monarchs: Queen Elizabeth the First and Queen Victoria. Beginning with medieval chant, a mystery play and ancient carols from the time of Elizabeth the First, the performance fast-forwarded three centuries to a Victorian Musical with a cup-o-wassail, roving carolers, brass music, and Ars Choralis’ own version of Charles Dickens’ story of Gabriel Grub from The Pickwick Papers. From the mystical to merriment — all in one performance!
June 2011
A Sacred Celebration
Guest artist Lily Arbisser, the Eribeth Chamber Players, and a stage full of percussionists gathered with Ars Choralis to present a remarkable program of sacred music at the national treasured Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, NY. The program included J.S. Bach’s Cantate BWV 84, Ariel Ramirez’s Misa Criolla, the area premiere of Lynn Kurtz’ Sacred Celebration and smaller pieces by Le Jeune, Swider, Weerbecke, Mozart and others.
March 2011
Dettingin Te Deum
Ars Choralis with the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra
December 2010
Welcome Yule: Go Tell it On the Mountain
A concert laced with the sparkling rhythms, wonderment and joy of Hispanic Appalachian and African American carols tied together by the remarkable saxophone styling of Robert Shaut and joyous voices of the Hudson Valley Youth Chorale, all summed up in a spirit of unity and goodwill expressed in the words of Maya Angelou’s poem Amazing Peace.
June 2010
Spellbound on the Solstice
The monumental Opus 40, where melodies resonating from stone echo across the remarkable sculpture, was the perfect setting for a spellbinding solstice concert. The hundreds of people seated in the amphitheater, on the hillside and the plateau above were in unanimous agreement. The multi-faceted concert drew upon four centuries of music and myriad moods to close simply with Pete Seeger’s words, “Guard well our human chain. Watch well and keep it strong. . . .”
March 2010
Eine Kleine Mozart in March
Ars Choralis and the Eribeth Chamber Players joined forces to bring both Mozart’s famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and his less familiar Dir, Seele Des Weltalls to life. Three unknown motets and the popular Regina Coeli in B-Flat completed the program.
December 2009
Welcome Yule from the Misty Isles
Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols opened the concert, perfectly blending the archaic Old English language with a contemporary musical setting. Through the magic of Dylan Thomas’s poetry, A Children’s Christmas in Wales, glimpses of holidays past were brought to life and illuminated by the songs of Ars Choralis and tunes of guest artists Celtic Crossing.
June 2009
All-Brahms
A German Requiem, Op. 45, in the original London version with piano four-hands, plus String Sextet number 2 in G MAJOR, Op. 36.
March & April, 2009
Music In Desperate Times: Remembering the Women’s Orchestra of Birkenau
Third series of performances at Cathedral Church of Saint John The Divine, Manhattan and in Berlin Germany.
A choral concert set in the Holocaust featuring a small reconstruction of the Women’s Orchestra that played in the Camp at Birkenau during WWII. Their story was told with readings from their memoirs and histories, along with representative orchestral selections and choral commentary.
December 2008
Welcome Yule: Through a Stained Glass Window
Musical portraits of Christmas scenes through the ages. The concert featured ancient carols performed by The Catskill Mountain Renaissance Consort, the Medieval Liturgical Drama of The Three Kings, Early American shape note songs and music of Samuel Barber, Morton Lauridson, and others.
June 2000
Dido and Aeneas
Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, performed at the Hudson Valley art stonescape, Opus 40. Read a review here.