Sunday, January 31, 2010, 7 p.m., at Walt Disney Concert Hall
Almost A Cappella Program Conducted by Music Director Grant Gershon

The Los Angeles Master Chorale continues its 46th season with an almost a cappella program anchored by the West Coast premieres of two works by noted New York-based composer Nico Muhly – Bright Mass with Canons and First Service – on Sunday, January 31, 2010, 7:00 p.m., at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Other works include Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur’s sensuous 21-minute Le cantique des cantiques, based on the love poetry from “Song of Songs,” Tarik O’Regan’s Confirma hoc Deus, and Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir, written in 1922 but not performed until 1963 because the composer believed it “unworthy,” though the piece is now considered one of the choral monuments of the 20th Century. Gershon conducts and will participate in Listen Up!, the pre-concert talk at 6:00 p.m. with KUSC’s Alan Chapman. Kimo Smith is the guest organist.

Muhly, pairing ancient music techniques with a minimalist bent, wrote the reverent Bright Mass with Canons in 1995 for the choir of St. Thomas Church in New York City. Gershon says, “It takes the purity of the Anglican tradition of choral music and gives it a modern veneer, making it clearly of the here and now.”

First Service was composed by Muhly in 2004 and premiered the same year at Girton College in Cambridge University of England. Describing the work, Muhly states, “The Magnificat features an anxious two-note octave in the organ, nervously twitching in anticipation. The Nunc Dimittis (which is one of my favorite things written in the English language) starts slowly, and then focuses all of its energy towards the beginning of the Gloria Patri, a New Testament harmonic culling of everything that has come before it.”

The Chorale presented the West Coast premiere of Muhly’s Expecting The Main Things from You in February 2009. Among his numerous projects, Mulhy composed the score for the 2009 Academy Award-nominated film The Reader.

Gershon calls Daniel-Lesur’s Le cantique des cantiques “one of the most sensuous and gorgeous a cappella French compositions ever written.” The seven-movement work was written for 12-part unaccompanied voices, mixing French and Latin text drawn from “Song of Songs” as well as from New Testament texts.

Describing Martin’s austere but inspiring Mass for Double Choir, a showcase for choir, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross states, “It sounds like a Renaissance mass lost in time.” He notes Martin had “a gift for immersing himself in styles of the past without seeming to imitate them.”

Noted for his eclectic body of work that includes thrilling choral pieces, O’Regan composed Confirma hoc Deus for mixed choir and organ. Born in London in 1978, the two-time British Composer Award winner currently divides his time between New York City and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he is Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts, having previously held the Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship in Music Composition at Columbia University and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard.

Tickets to the concert range from $19 to $124. Student Rush seats are $10 and are available at the box office two hours before the performance. For tickets and information, please call (213) 972-7282, or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets can no longer be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.) The Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue at First Street in downtown Los Angeles.

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EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Calendar Listing

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The Grammy-nominated LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE, currently celebrating its 46th Season, has been cited as a national leader for its innovative and dynamic programming. Los Angeles Times states the Chorale “has become the most exciting chorus in the country under Grant Gershon.” Since its founding in 1964, LAMC has presented more than 450 concerts, including choral music from the earliest writings to the most recent contemporary compositions. In 2003 the Chorale became one of two resident companies in Walt Disney Concert Hall, launching a period of incredible artistic and organizational growth. The Chorale has commissioned 21 and premiered 51 new works, and has recorded 6 CD's. The Chorale’s most recent recording with Gershon, Daniel Variations, was released on Nonesuch in spring 2008. LAMC performs a season of seven concerts at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, plus two performances of the Messiah Sing-Along; and the family-friendly Holiday Wonders concert in December; and also performs regularly with the L.A. Philharmonic. The Los Angeles Master Chorale has more than 1,000 subscribers, serves over 40,000 audience members of all ages, and provides education outreach to approximately 13,000 children each year. In 2008, one of the Chorale’s highly successful outreach programs, “Voices Within,” earned the coveted Chorus America Education Outreach Award.

Los Angeles Master Chorale Music Director GRANT GERSHON is equally at home with symphonic and choral music, opera, and musical theater. He was named Music Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale in 2001, and also serves as LA Opera Associate Conductor/Chorus Master. During his tenure with the Chorale, he has led over 60 programs at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Gershon has also expanded the choir's repertoire considerably, conducting dozens of world, U.S., West Coast and Los Angeles premieres. His Nonesuch recording with the Chorale of Steve Reich's You Are (Variations) was honored with the WQXR Gramophone America Award in 2006. The New York Times, Washington Post and Newsday, among others, selected it as one of the top ten classical recordings of 2005. In 2002 he made his first CD with the Master Chorale, featuring the world premiere recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen's first choral work as well as Philip Glass's Itaipú (RCM 12004). Gershon has also served as chorus master on two Grammy Award-nominated CD's, Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti's Grand Macabre (Sony Classical). He has appeared on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center leading the LA Master Chorale, and on the Making Music Series at Zankel Hall. Gershon conducted the Minnesota Opera's world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's acclaimed opera The Grapes of Wrath, led subsequent performances of the work with the Utah Symphony and also conducted the cast recording released in 2008 on P.S. Classics. In May 2009 he made his highly acclaimed Los Angeles Opera debut leading eight performances of Verdi's La Traviata. Gershon received his bachelor of music degree cum laude in piano performance from USC, and currently serves on the USC Thornton School of Music Board of Advisors.

Artists, program and ticket prices subject to change.

01/19/09