We are thrilled to announce our next LIVE season, beginning this December. It’s hard to fathom, but the last live MasterVoices concert was in January 2020! Your camaraderie and support helped us keep hope and music alive in the meantime, with digital releases of ALLELUIA and the four-part choral-palooza that was MYTHS AND HYMNS.
We hope our new logo will give you a sense of the spirit, energy, and artfulness with which we’re building our future and celebrating our 80th year of music-making. We’re not just coming back – we’re moving forward.
Come with us! We’ve missed you.
A JOYFUL NOISE
December 6, 2021 at 7:30pm | CARNEGIE HALL
Featuring:
Mikaela Bennett
Take 6
Northwell Health Nurse Choir
Ted Sperling, Conductor
MasterVoices makes a triumphant return to Carnegie Hall in December, with so much more to celebrate than just the holidays! Join us for a full-spectrum musical embrace of our many points of gratitude, including the live reunion of the MasterVoices Chorus and the supremely diverse talents of guest artists Mikaela Bennett (breakout soprano star from Chicago Lyric’s West Side Story and our own Let ‘Em Eat Cake), 10-time GRAMMY Award-winning gospel group Take 6, and Northwell Health Nurse Choir, fresh from their Top 10 appearance on America’s Got Talent!
The evening’s uplifting program was tailor-made for the moment and for the special talents of the artists at hand – from a full version of Leonard Bernstein’s jazzy Chichester Psalms to a cappella classics, gospel arrangements of traditional favorites, and live reprises of last year’s digital sensations Migratory V and Alleluia, which have received over 85,000 views to date.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT!
Join us for MasterVoices’ Holiday Gala on December 6 following the concert performance in Carnegie Hall.
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and Book by Arthur Laurents
March 10, 2022 at 7pm | CARNEGIE HALL
Featuring
Vanessa Williams
Ted Sperling, Director & Conductor
Better than buried treasure! Come rediscover a madcap, provocative, and weirdly romantic gem from the legendary Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents. Starring Vanessa Williams in the role of a corrupt mayoress (originally played by Angela Lansbury), who fakes a miracle to revitalize her bankrupt town, the zany plot includes an ill-fated romance between a rational nurse, out to expose the fraud, and a chaos-loving doctor, who makes us question the very notion of sanity.
Rarely performed, this timely “satire on conformity” is also an exuberant musical comedy, filled with one showstopper after another and highlighting what Ben Brantley called Sondheim’s “gift for defining, in song, characters who are a hair’s breadth from nervous breakdowns.” Hit songs from the show include “Me and My Town,” “There Won’t Be Trumpets,” “Anyone Can Whistle,” “Everybody Says Don’t” and “With So Little to be Sure Of”… which is one of Sondheim’s own favorites.
SONGS FOR A SUMMER NIGHT
EARLY JUNE | OUTDOOR LOCATION
Featuring
Shereen Pimentel
Tariq Al-Sabir
Orchestra of St. Luke’s
Ted Sperling, Conductor
This effervescent evening is designed to delight your senses – think balmy breezes, atmospheric surroundings, and a lush score that brings the sounds of summer to life.
From the fairy forests of Felix Mendelssohn to the porch swings of Samuel Barber, this outdoor serenade will feature the MasterVoices Chorus and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, with vocalists Shereen Pimentel (Ivo van Hove’s West Side Story, last season’s Myths and Hymns) and Tariq Al-Sabir (Toshi Reagon’s Parable of the Sower, Meredith Monk’s Atlas).
We’ll transport you through summers in Renaissance Italy and fin-de-siècle Sweden… but if NYC summers are your thing, we’ve got you covered with contemporary works by the phenomenal Ricky Ian Gordon (Grapes of Wrath, Intimate Apparel) and a world premiere commission by boundless talent Tariq Al-Sabir, whose recent commissions include the Harvard University Committee on the Arts (2022), and the 2021 New York Festival of Song.
