New Classic Singers presents its 30th holiday concert with WORLD CAROL, an international tour of holiday music, on Sunday, December 11, at 4 p.m., at the McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.  Music Director / Founder Lee Kesselman will conduct the 32 voice adult ensemble as it treats the audience to carols and popular holiday songs from six continents and various islands.  William Buhr will accompany. The McAninch Arts Center is located on the main campus of College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.

“All around the world, Christians look to the Christmas holiday as a time for reflection, for celebration, for rejoicing in the blessings of the season,“ says Kesselman.  “What better way to enjoy those celebrations than to sing the carols of the world?”

The Singers will perform holiday carols from all six continents, including both well-known and lesser-known songs. From bi-lingual Canada, to Korea, and from Africa to Australia, many of the world’s most celebrated arrangers have created beautiful arrangements of the carols which will be sung on World Carol.  Among the better known arrangers are Alice Parker, John Rutter, Juan-Tony Guzman, Stephen Leek, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Eleanor Daley. Some of the more interesting carols will represent traditions of Latvia, Iceland, Korea, the Dominican Republic, and Nigeria.

New  Classic Singers has been entertaining DuPage audiences with the finest in choral singing and repertoire. Members include solo vocalists, educators, and other fine singers from through the Chicago area. The ensemble is known for its imaginative programs and vocal excellence.  NCS holiday concerts have been an annual treat for DuPage audiences since 1982.

Director Lee Kesselman is widely known as a conductor, composer, and arranger. His choral music is performed internationally and his leadership of NCS has made the ensemble a beacon of choral music in the Chicago area. He brings a unique composer’s perspective to his work as music director.

Tickets for New Classic Singers concerts are available at www.newclassicsingers.org or at the door. Special rates are available for students, seniors, and groups.

New Classic Singers opens its 30th concert season with PSALMS & SPIRITUALS, an exploration of styles and spirit, on Saturday, November 5, at 8 p.m.  at St Petronille Church in Glen Ellyn and Sunday, November 13, at 3 p.m. at St Francis Xavier Church in La Grange.  Music Director and Founder Lee Kesselman will conduct the 32 voice adult ensemble as it treats the audience to sacred, secular, opera and and musical theater selections.  William Buhr will accompany. St Petronille Church is located at 420 Glenwood Avenue in Glen Ellyn.  St Francis Xavier Church is located at 124 N Spring Ave in La Grange.

“Composers have always been drawn to the Psalms as a treasure trove of musical inspiration,” says director Kesselman.  “The psalm traditions might be the richest set of words in Western sacred music, and they resonate equaly with Christiands and Jews.”

NCS will sing Psalm-settings by Brahms, Distler, Gregg Smith, Stanford, Jean Berger, and director Kesselman.

“No music is more universally enjoyed by American choirs and audiences than that of African-American spirituals,” says Kesselman. The NCS collection will include arrangements by Burleigh, Leonard De Paur, Stacey Gibbs, William Dawson, and Moses Hogan.

New  Classic Singers has been entertaining DuPage audiences with the finest in choral singing and repertoire. Members include solo vocalists, educators, and other fine singers from through the Chicago area. The ensemble is known for its imaginative programs and vocal excellence.

Director Lee Kesselman is widely known as a conductor, composer, and arranger. His choral music is performed internationally and his leadership of NCS has made the ensemble a beacon of choral music in the Chicago area. He brings a unique composer’s perspective to his work as music director.

Tickets for New Classic Singers  are available at www.newclassicsingers.org or at the door. Special rates are available for students, seniors, and groups.

New Classic Singers, DuPage's leading choral ensemble since 1982, announces its 29th concert season. Under the direction of founder Lee Kesselman, the Glen Ellyn-based ensemble will perform four varied programs of classics, popular composers, holiday favorites, and recent works.

Highlights of the season include varied Psalm settings, spirituals, carols from six continents, Jewish choral music, including a major premiere, and an on-stage radio show.

Season subscriptions will be available later this year at www.newclassicsingers.org. Special rates are charged for seniors and students.

2011-2012 Concerts

A CONCERT OF REMEMBRANCE

3 pm on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 at Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph Drive, Chicago

NCS joins Fulcrum Point New Music Ensemble for a remembrance peace concert. NCS will be featured in Lee Kesselman’s SENSOO.

PSALMS & SPIRITUALS

8 pm on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011 at St. Petronille Catholic Church, Glen Ellyn

Where better than the Book of Psalms to find timeless texts of joy, lamentation & praise? And where better than spirituals to find the thrill of American music at its finest?

WORLD CAROL

4 pm on Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011 at McAninch Arts Center, Glen Ellyn

Six continents of carols. There's no better way to celebrate the holidays!

KADOSH: A(nother) CELEBRATION OF JEWISH MUSIC

8 pm on  Saturday, March 3, 2012 at Christ the King Catholic Church, Lombard

Settings of Kadosh, Kiddush, & Kaddish and a Klezmer dessert! Plus the premiere of Lee Kesselman’s Kaddish for My Father.

THE NEW CLASSICS RADIO HOUR

8 pm on Saturday, May 5, 2012 at McAninch Arts Center, Glen Ellyn

Imagine a radio station in a large metropolitan community college on the prairies of Illinois, with an in-studio choir.  A peek into some of the back-hall intrigues and colorful classrooms, with music attached. Featuring Chris Miller.

For ticket information, concert directions, and more, please visit www.newclassicsingers.org or call 630/654-9717

NEW CLASSIC SINGERS, a select 36 voice adult choral ensemble, will hold auditions for 2011-2012 membership, in the month of July, including July 6, 12, and 19. 

Auditions are open to all highly skilled adult singers, and will include singing two prepared selection, sight-reading, vocalizing and a brief interview. Auditions are by appointment only and may be made by contacting the director at lrk@newclassicsingers.org as soon as possible. An accompanist will be provided.  There are openings in all sections.

Repertoire for the 2011-2012 season includes psalm settings, spirituals, Jewish music, carols from around the world, in addition to other sacred and secular selections.

Founder/director Lee Kesselman is internationally known as a conductor, pianist, teacher and award-winning composer. He has developed the New Classic Singers with a love for the vocal art and interests in a great breadth of literature. The Singers have performed Chicago-area premieres of scores of works, and are known for imaginative and unique programming in the choral world.

New Classic Singers performs a season series of four main concerts in Glen Ellyn, with additional concerts in nearby locations and participation in a 9/11 Concert of Remembrance at the Harris Theatre in Chicago.

New Classic Singers

Lee R. Kesselman, Music Director

Closes its 2010-2011 season with a celebration of BOYS & GIRLS on

8pm, Saturday May 7, 2011
McAninch Arts Center

425 Fawell Blvd.

Glen Ellyn, IL

BOYS & GIRLS includes music my a number of America’s most notable choral composers and arrangers, all on themes of  the relationships between boys & girls, men & women. Composers Eric Whitacre, Gwyneth Walker, Clyde Thompson, Carol Barnett are all represented. The performance will also include a complete performance of Kirke Mechem’s American Madrigals, part-songs by Johannes Brahms, and clever musical oddities by P.D.Q. Bach.  Finally, the Singers will close with a selection of classic love songs by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Rodgers & Hart, and other representatives of the Great American Songbook.

New Classic Singers 29^th season continues its long-standing tradition of entertaining DuPage & Chicago-area audiences with the finest in choral singing and repertoire. Members include solo vocalists, educators, and other fine singers from throughout the Chicago area. The ensemble is known for its imaginative programs and vocal excellence. NCS has presented an annual holiday program since its inception in 1982.

Director Lee Kesselman is widely known as a conductor, composer, and arranger. His choral music is performed internationally and his leadership of NCS has made the ensemble a beacon of choral music in the Chicago area. He brings a unique composer’s perspective to his work as music director.

Tickets for New Classic Singers  are available at 630-942-4000 or www.newclassicsingers.org or at the door. Special rates are available for students, seniors, and groups.

Director Lee Kesselman talks about David Lang’s the little match girl passion, East European choral music, and other matters choral

Q: I remember the Hans Christian Anderson story of the little match girl. It was dark and wintry, as I recall. Will this music be like that?

LRK: The Andersen story has much sadness in it. But Lang uses the concept of ‘the passion’ — the Christian story of suffering for redemption — as a way of making it a universal tale. The composer breaks up the story into sections, each one of which brings across a different part of the story. We’ll tell the story aloud before the Lang work, to make sure everyone is attached to the beautiful storyline before hand.

Q: What about the musical style?

LRK: Labels are so hard! I’d say that Lang knows his Steve Reich, John Adams, Philip Glass, James Macmillan. The music is ‘contemporary’ — but not so much dissonant as rhythmically engaging, repeating small fragments, and adding layers of textures like African music or Eastern chant. The influences of world music and meditation are strong.

Q: Why is NCS singing this piece? What does it have to say to the audience?

LRK: Well, for one thing, I think it’s very beautiful. But also very moving. It’s one of those pieces I heard — and just felt — we HAVE to do this! The singers have been very moved in rehearsals. It’s quite challenging, but one after another, people have been coming up to me and saying how moving and beautiful they find the music, the concept, the moments.

Q: Why haven’t we heard much about this piece?

LRK: Well, it hasn’t been done very often yet. The work was written for Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices in 2007 and performed with one on a part. It was recorded in 2008 and is just now beginning to find it’s way into the rest of the country. There is a new-ish choral version, which we’re singing. It also calls for a few percussion instruments – glockenspiel, bass drum, sleighbell, chimes, brake drum.

Q: A REAL brake-drum, like from a car?

LRK: Yes.

Q: What about the rest of the program?

LRK: One of the most fertile regions of a cappella singing is Eastern Europe — Lithuania, Russia and Estonia. Those cultures have been havens for church music for 100’s of years and a hotbed of choral invention for the past 40.

Q: Why East European music with the match girl?

LRK: I wanted to emphasize the sacred implications of the Lang piece. Also, what the Lang doesn’t have is a lot of sustained sonority — and, frankly, this music has it to burn! (sorry, bad pun, … match girl, … burn….). The textures of Chesnokov, Rachmaninoff, Myskinis will provide some real richness, compared to the more sparse qualities of the Lang. And then, there are a few pieces which split the difference — selections by Urmas Sisask and Arvo Pärt are rich and satisfying and yet share some of the Eastern, contemporary qualities of the Lang.

Q: You’ve been choosing programs for NCS since the fall of 1982. Is it ever hard to find music to perform?

LRK: There’s SO MUCH great music out there! And every once in a while it’s nice to go back and repeat things. since they’re all ‘new again’ with new singers and new perspectives. And then, there’s the thrill of sharing that music with the singers and the audience… which makes it all so worthwhile.

Q: See you on March 5-6.

LRK: Yes — with sleigh-bells, brake drums, match girls, storytellers, and something for the soul….

On Saturday, March 5th and Sunday, March 6th the New Classic Singers will perform David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning the little match girl passion between groupings of East European sacred choral music.

New Classic Singers and Lee R. Kesselman, Music Director will present the Midwest premiere of David Lang’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning the little match girl passion plus sacred music from Russia, Estonia, and Lithuania at the following concerts:

• 8pm, Saturday March 5, 2011
  Glen Ellyn Evangelical Covenant Church, 277 Hawthorne Blvd., Glen Ellyn
• 3pm, Sunday March 6, 2011
  St Peter's Church, 110 West Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60602

New Classic Singers 29^th season continues its long-standing tradition of bringing significant works of our time to the Chicago area for the first time. Past major area premiers have included:

• Dominick Argento: A Toccata of Galuppi’s
• Dominick Argento: Jonah
• James Macmillan: Seven Last Words
• Thomas Pasatieri: Harvest Frost
• Conrad Susa: Six Madrigals
• Daniel Brewbaker: From the Heart
• Terry Riley: Sun Rings (with Kronos Quartet)

David Lang’s the little match girl passion  is based on Hans Christian Andersen story The Little Match Girl.  It was originally written for Paul Hiller’s Theater of Voices.  Lang sets the story in the format of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion.  The program will also include sacred music by Arvo Pärt, Vytautas Myskinis, Urmas Sisask, Pavel Chesnokov, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

The composer David Lang writes about the work on the publisher's website, which also quotes the New York Times:

“Mr. Lang's achievement is in yoking together opposites so thoroughly that they seem inextricable, even though, logically, they should hardly work together at all. His libretto, which he wrote himself, alternates among stripped-down, poetic imagery, prose description in grimy detail and fragments from Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The score sounds simple and neo-medieval at first, but further listening reveals layers of harmonic and contrapuntal complexity. And the choir, singing with an icy, uninflected detachment, paints a deeply moving portrait of the girl within a harrowing landscape. “
Alan Kozinn, The New York Times, 31/05/2009

Frequent NCS member and soloist David Govertsen is one of six talented young singers who have been accepted into the prestigious Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center ensemble at Lyric Opera of Chicago, beginning in May 2011.

Each year The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, the professional artist-development program of Lyric Opera of Chicago, selects gifted young singers from some 400 applicants. Soon after arriving at Lyric in May, incoming Ryan Opera Center members begin an intensive full-year residency under the guidance of Gianna Rolandi and numerous other opera professionals. Coaching sessions and master classes are augmented by performance and understudy experience in productions mounted by Lyric Opera of Chicago, including the eight operas of Lyric’s regular season. (Until September 2006, the program was known as the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists.)

Lyric Press Release