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MONTEREY SYMPHONY WILL PRESENT THREE PERFORMANCES OF HANDEL'S MESSIAH ON
DECEMBER 1, 2, 3, 2007
October 18, 2007, Carmel, California: For the first time in twenty-one
years, the Monterey Symphony will present a full production of what is
arguably the world's most popular choral work, George Frideric Handel's
magnificent oratorio, Messiah. Austrian conductor Christoph Campestrini
will lead the orchestra, soprano Sharla Nafziger, mezzo-soprano Barbara
Rearick, tenor William Watson, bass Michael Dean, and the Monterey
Symphony Chorus under the direction of Leroy Kromm.
Single tickets for the Saturday, December 1, 8:00 p.m. performance at
Salinas' Sherwood Hall are $38, $28, $18 and $16 students. For the Stage
Door Performance at 3:00 p.m. (final rehearsal) tickets are $12 in
advance, $15 at the door. Single tickets for the Sunday, December 2,
3:00 p.m. and Monday, December 3, 8:00 p.m. concerts at Carmel's Sunset
Theater are $60, $55, $50, $45, and $35—not including Sunset Center's
Facility Use Fee. Visa and MasterCard are accepted. Ticket buyers are
urged to call immediately for tickets as the likelihood of sold-out
performances is great. Call 831-624-8511 extension "0," for exact seat
locations.
Distinguished in his field as one of the foremost young conducting
talents of nineteenth and twentieth century repertoire, Christoph
Campestrini has appeared with many of the world's finest orchestras. In
extremely high demand as a guest conductor, he has appeared with more
than 70 orchestras on five continents to great critical acclaim.
Mr. Campestrini's recent performances include engagements with the
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Columbus
Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Ottawa's National
Arts Centre Orchestra, Innsbruck Symphony, Czech State Philharmonic of
Brno, and the Bruckner Orchester Linz. He made his debut with the London
Symphony Orchestra in 1998 at the Barbican Center in a program broadcast
by the BBC. He has led tours of the chamber orchestra of the Vienna
Symphony Orchestra.
Born in Linz, Upper Austria, Mr. Campestrini moved to New York in 1985,
where he received his Bachelor of Music in conducting, piano and
composition from the Juilliard School. Simultaneously, he majored in
philosophy and languages at Columbia University. He went on to attend
the Yale Affiliate Artist Conducting Program, where he was the only
European member selected from the 400 applicants.
Soprano Sharla Nafziger has performed more than sixty works in the
oratorio and concert repertoire, appearing with symphony orchestras and
choral societies throughout North America.
Ms. Nafziger made an impressive debut at Tanglewood as Nannetta in
Falstaff under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, later broadcast on NPR.
Upcoming engagements include Vaughn Williams' A Sea Symphony with the
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. She is a regular guest of the Bach
Festival Society of Winter Park, FL and will return for the 2008
festival to sing Haydn's Creation and Bach's St. Matthew Passion.
Last fall, Ms. Nafziger appeared as Frasquita (Carmen) and Juliette (Die
Tote Stadt) at New York City Opera. She also sang Messiah with the
National Philharmonic Orchestra (MD) and the Pensacola Symphony, and
performed the orchestral premiere of Larry Nelson's Seven Clay Songs
with Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia. This spring she returned to
Carnegie Hall to sing Faure's Requiem and Schubert's Mass in G, and sang
Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem at the Shenadoah Valley Bach Festival.
Additional engagements recently include Messiah and Mozart's Great Mass
in C Minor at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York,
Faure's Requiem with Voices of Ascension (NYC), and Carmina Burana with
the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. She resides in New York City she lives
with her partner Anthony Meloni, a noted organ builder, and their
daughter, Lia, born April 17, 2006.
Barbara Rearick has earned equal praise for her opera, lieder, oratorio,
20th Century and popular American song performances. Ms. Rearick has
recently performed with the symphony orchestras located in such cities
as Baltimore, Buffalo, Harrisburg, Kansas City, Wheeling, Spokane, and
Houston. In the U.S. her recent engagements include Weill's The Eternal
Road with Milken Archive in New York (recorded for Naxos); the title
role in the world premiere of Allan Jaffe's The Life of Mary Shelley;
Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with Keith Lockhart and Utah Symphony; Britten's
Spring Symphony under Jeff Kahane; Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes with Mark
Morris at BAM; Haydn's Paukenmesse and Bach Magnificat with Voices of
Ascension; and Bach Cantatas 147 and 200 in the Northwest Bach Festival
with Gunther Schuller. Ms. Rearick engagements have included Messiah and
Prokofiev's The Ugly Duckling with Baltimore Symphony, Messiah with
Houston Symphony and as Maddalena in concert performance of Verdi's
Rigoletto with Spokane Symphony. This season, she will be recording
Weill's Eternal Road with Milken Archive in Berlin as well as singing
Messiah with Pensacola Symphony and Beethoven Mass in C with the
Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall. Barbara Rearick is a
native of Pennsylvania and resides in New York City with her husband and
five-years-old son.
American tenor, William Watson, has been guest soloist with symphony
orchestras throughout the USA and Canada, including those in Chicago,
Saint Louis, Montreal, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Rochester with such
conductors as Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Slatkin, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Hugh
Wolff, Lukas Foss, Mark Elder, and Charles Dutoit. He has also sung with
the orchestras of Alabama, Buffalo, Nashville, Dayton, Wichita, Oregon,
Jacksonville, Fort Wayne, Monterey, New Jersey, and New York's Orchestra
of St. Luke's, with which he made his Carnegie Hall debut. He sang with
the Mozart Requiem with the Monterey Symphony in 1998, Clark Suttle
conducting.
William Watson has also performed with major opera companies across the
United States and Europe, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago,
Cleveland Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Palm Beach Opera, Texas Opera
Theater, Pennsylvania Opera Theater, and Central City Opera. In Europe,
he performed for two seasons at the Aachen Stadttheater in Germany, the
San Sebastian Festival in Spain, and the Europera Festival in France.
In a long association with Chicago's esteemed Music of the Baroque,
William Watson has performed a long list of works, including all the
major works of Bach; most of the major oratorios of Handel plus his
operas, Alcina and Semele; many works of Purcell; the operas of
Monteverdi and other Baroque masters; and several works of Mozart and
Haydn. William Watson is a visiting assistant professor of voice at the
School of Music of Northern Illinois University.
American bass-baritone Michael Dean is in demand worldwide both in
concert and operatic repertoire, appearing with the leading opera
companies and symphony orchestras of the U.S. and Europe. His powerful
voice and commanding stage presence have garnered him wide acclaim from
audiences and critics alike, in repertoire ranging from early to
contemporary music. Mr. Dean has made appearances at the New York
Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, Carmel Bach Festival, Alabama Symphony Göttingen Handel
Festival New York City Opera, de Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp, Glimmerglass
Opera the Landestheater in Linz, Arizona Opera, Opera Grand Rapids,
Pittsburgh Opera, Opera du Rhin (Strasbourg), Orlando Opera, and the
Komische Oper Berlin. Mr. Dean's engagements include Handel's Messiah at
Carnegie Hall, as well as in Boston, Ann Arbor and Kansas City; Haydn's
Creation at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Bach Magnificat with
the Toronto Symphony; the St. Matthew Passion with the Phoenix Symphony;
Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Lansing, MI; and and evening of Bach
Cantatas at Disney Hall with Helmut Rilling conducting the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra.
Monterey Symphony chorus director Leroy Kromm was appointed to his
position by former music director Kate Tamarkin in 2001. Mr. Kromm's
extensive experience as a professional singer, vocal coach and choral
leader, has produced some of the finest collaborations between chorus
and orchestra yet presented on the Monterey Peninsula. Thus far, Mr.
Kromm has prepared the Symphony Chorus for Bruckner's Te Deum,
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Orff's Carmina burana, Bernstein's
Chichester Psalms, and selections from Elijah. He has been instrumental
in designing and presenting the annual holiday concerts in December.
As a baritone, Mr. Kromm has sung performances with Philharmonia Baroque
Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Anchorage Festival of Music, Harvard
University, San Jose and Sacramento Symphonies, and Midsummer Mozart
Festival. His opera roles have included the title role in Tartuffe by
Kirk Mechem, Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro and Masetto in Don Giovanni,
as well as several contemporary opera productions. Specializing in
oratorios of all eras, Mr. Kromm has performed most bass-baritone
oratorio roles in concert throughout the United States, most recently
singing Christus in Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. A
strong advocate for new music, he has worked directly with some of the
most prominent composers of our day including George Crumb, Lou
Harrison, Jake Heggie, Kirke Mechem, Ned Rorem, and, most recently,
Henry Mollicone—presenting his critically acclaimed Beatitude Mass at
Saint Joseph's Cathedral on March 31, 2006. Mr. Kromm is a full-time
professor of voice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
The Monterey Symphony Chorus was founded by then music director Clark
Suttle in 1990 and led until his untimely death in 2001, Ken Ahrens.
Since its beginning, the Symphony Chorus has been a featured ensemble on
one or more subscription concerts, all of the annual holiday concerts
and on several special occasions.
The Monterey Symphony, under the artistic leadership of Max Bragado, is
the only fully-professional orchestra serving the communities of the
Monterey Bay, Salinas, Salinas Valley, Big Sur, and San Benito County.
It provides triple performances of a seven-concert subscription series
at Carmel's Sunset Theater and Salinas' Sherwood Hall, annual holiday
concerts, and an extensive youth activities program, including more than
200 visits to classrooms by musicians, which culminates in concerts by
the full orchestra for school children.
The Monterey Symphony is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation,
supported, in part, through the fundraising efforts of the Friends of
the Monterey Symphony; and grants from The David and Lucile Packard
Foundation, The Harden Foundation, The Robert and Virginia Stanton Fund
at the Community Foundation for Monterey County, The William and Flora
Hewlitt Foundation, The Monterey Peninsula Foundation, The General
Endowment Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County, The
Chapman Foundation, The Communities Advancing the Arts Initiative of the
Community Foundation of Monterey County, The McGraw-Hill Companies,
Graniterock Company, The Nunes Company, Upjohn California Fund, and many
other generous foundations and individual donors.
The next performances by the Monterey Symphony will take place on
December 1, 2, and 3, and feature guest conductor Christoph Campestrini
conducting music by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. For additional
information, please call 831-624-8511 or visit our web site:
www.montereysymphony.org.
# # #
MONTEREY SYMPHONY 62nd SUBSCRIPTION SEASON 2007-2008
Max Bragado-Darman, music director Serving the communities of the
Monterey Bay, Salinas Valley, Big Sur, and San Benito County
Concert II
Christoph Campestrini, conductor
Sharla Nafziger, soprano
Barbara Rearick, mezzo-soprano
William Watson, tenor
Michael Dean, bass
Saturday, December 1, 2007, 8:00 p.m., Sherwood Hall, Salinas
Sunday, December 2, 2007, 3:00 p.m., Sunset Theater, Carmel
Monday, December 3, 2007, 8:00 p.m., Sunset Theater, Carmel
PROGRAM
George Frideric Handel Messiah
(1658-1759)
This program will be broadcast on KUSP 88.9 FM on Sunday, December 23,
2007, 11:00 a.m.
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Monterey Symphony PO Box 3965, Carmel, CA 93921
Voice 831-624-8511 ext. 0 Fax 831-624-3837
© 2008 Monterey Symphony. All Rights Reserved.
