The use of cameras or recording equipment during the

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Erastus Salisbury Field, Man with a Tune Book: Possibly Mr. Cook,

c. 1838, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

Choral Festival celebrating 

the reopening ofthe American Galleries

Friday, April 17 through Sunday, April 19

1:30 pm and 3:30 pm

West Building, East Garden Court

Admissionfree
The Festival

Anthropologists agree that communal singing was present in the earliest stages

ofhuman civilization. When the first Europeans arrived at what eventually

came to be called America, the singing and chanting that they encountered by

native tribes was a continuation ofa tradition that was already thousands of

years old. Some ofthe sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish settlers were 

priests who had been trained in schools where the Renaissance polyphonic

choral tradition was in full flower, and they incorporated some ofthe elements

ofthat tradition into the curricula ofthe schools they set up in the New World.

Music from some oftheir surviving manuscripts was heard at the National

Gallery in 1992, when the National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble and the early

music ensemble Hesperus performed a program of Spanish and colonial vocal

music in honor ofthe exhibition Circa 1492: Art in the Age ofExploration.

American choral music, as such, can be said to have had its beginnings

in the congregational psalmody that was practiced by the English- and

Dutch-speaking immigrants to the New England and New Amsterdam

colonies. Congregational psalm singing in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was characterized by unison singing (with occasional

haphazard harmony), slow, drawn-out elocution ofthe text, and improvised

melodic ornamentation. In the 1720s, a reform movement emerged among

some New England clergymen who were impatient with the irregularity of

the singing in their congregations. They advocated rehearsals and classes

separate from the church services, in which reading music, part-singing,

vocal production, and deportment would be taught. The resulting “singing

schools” evolved into church and community choral societies, the first

ofwhich was the Stoughton (Massachusetts) Musical Society, founded in

1786. The nineteenth-century inheritors ofthis tradition, led by composers

William B. Bradbury, Thomas Hastings, and Lowell Mason, strove to

improve the quality ofsinging in New England by adopting European

styles and methods. One ofthe choral societies formed during this period,

the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, continues to the present day.

German-speaking immigrants came to America with church and community choral singing as an integral part oftheir culture. The Collegium Musicum

ofBethlehem, Pennsylvania, formed by Moravian immigrants in 1744, was

already two generations old by the time the Massachusetts Musical Society

was founded. By the middle ofthe nineteenth century, the flood ofGermanspeaking immigrants brought with it a proliferation ofsinging societies,

among them the Deutsche Liederkranz (1847), the Mannergesangverein

(1854), the Mendelssohn Glee Club (1866), and the Apollo Musical Club (1872).

National and international choral festivals, known as Sangefeste, were a

regular part oftheir activities and brought together hundreds and sometimes

thousands ofsingers into mass choruses.

A good number ofthe painters whose works now hang in the American

galleries were enthusiastic amateur singers, making it all the more fitting that

the reopening ofthese galleries should be celebrated in choral song. The 

participating choirs have selected pieces from their repertoire that were either

already in existence in nineteenth-century America, or that are based on tunes

well rooted in the American tradition. The musicians will announce their

selections from the stage.

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2,719th Concert 

April 17, 2009

Friday, 1:30 pm

West Building, East Garden Court

National Men’s Chorus

Thomas Beveridge, artistic director and conductor

Thomas Pandolfi, pianist

Ten years ago, artistic director Thomas Beveridge founded The National

Men’s Chorus. The Washington Post music critic Joseph McLellan hailed 

the first concert as a “triumphant debut” in a performance displaying 

“exemplary polish, expression, and control.” In its first concert season, the 

Chorus presented the infrequently heard combination ofCherubini’s

Requiem and Gounod’s Messe no. 2, a program that was repeated by popular

demand in 2003. In the years since, the ensemble has performed many

other classics ofthe literature for male voices, as well as arrangements of

traditional melodies composed especially for the group. It has appeared in 

the concert series in Waterford, Virginia, and in a variety ofWashington 

area locations, including the George Washington National Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. There, the Chorus presented a collection ofthe 

“Masonic Music” of Mozart together with Randall Thompson’s Testament

ofFreedom, with full orchestra.

The National Men’s Chorus has been honored with prestigious concert

invitations, including the American Music Festival at the National Gallery of

Art. In the spring of 2002, at the dedication ofthe George Mason Memorial 

near the National Mall, the group performed the cantata Life and Liberty,

a Thomas Beveridge setting oftexts by George Mason commissioned for

the occasion. The Chorus has appeared twice at the Rachel M. Schlesinger 

Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria, Virginia, most recendy with 

the Alexandria Symphony.

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In today’s concert, the Chorus presents a sampling ofits wide-ranging 

repertoire of American patriotic music, some traditional, some historic, and 

some seldom-heard. Much ofthat music is available on the recently released 

CD Life and Liberty, www.nationalmenschorus.org/CDSales.htm which also

features the Washington Symphonic Brass and organist Paul Slcevington.

5
2,720th Concert

April 17, 2009

Friday, 3:30 pm

West Building, East Garden Court

Columbia Collegiate Chorale

James Bingham, artistic director and conductor

Daniel Lau, pianist

Established in 1994 by its present director James Bingham, The Columbia

Collegiate Chorale draws its membership largely from the student body of

Columbia Union College. Incorporated within the chorale is a smaller select

chamber choir, the ProMusica ofColumbia Union College, which was 

established in 1967 by the late Paul Hill, director ofthe famed Paul Hill Chorale, now known as the Master Chorale ofWashington.

Under the leadership ofits present director, the choir has undertaken a

heavy schedule ofservices and concerts, traveling extensively both nationally 

and internationally. It has appeared in numerous prestigious venues such as

Carnegie Hall, the National Gallery ofArt, and the John F. Kennedy Center for

the Performing Arts, as well as in other leading concert halls and cathedrals 

both within the United States and abroad. The choir has recorded a number

of cds for the Ethereal Records label and has received acclaim for its recording

of Louis Vieme’s Messe Solennelle in C Minor. Ofits recording, O Jesus Sweet:

Musicfor a Christmas Night, which includes Dancing Day by John Rutter, the

composer has written,“I could not wish for a finer interpretation ofmy piece.”

Columbia Union College was founded in 1904 as part ofthe Seventh-day 

Adventist Church’s educational system in North America. As a tertiary level

institution, it attracts an international coeducational student body, and offers

undergraduate and graduate, traditional and non-traditional, programs in

6

liberal arts, sciences and selected professional fields. Its location in Takoma

Park, Maryland, just outside ofthe nation’s capital, enables its students to

interact with many national and international cultural, religious, and multiethnic organizations. The mission ofthe Columbia Collegiate Chorale is to

represent the best ofAmerican culture and the finest ofChristian culture

through the study and performance ofthe sacred music ofthe great masters.

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2,721st Concert

April 18, 2009

Saturday, 1:30 pm

West Building, East Garden Court

Master Singers ofVirginia

Erik Reid Jones, artistic director and conductor

The Master Singers ofVirginia is one ofthe Washington area’s premier choral 

ensembles. Now in its fourteenth year, the group has performed major works

by Barber, Britten, Bruckner, Copland, Poulenc, and Rachmaninoff. Directed by

its founder, Erik Reid Jones, it has also performed original works and modem

adaptations ofBaltic regional music, including folk music ofthe “forgotten 

peoples.” The ensemble performs at several venues in Northern Virginia, and

in recent years has performed at National Harbor and the National Theater as

well as in the Alden, St. Luke, and Waterford concert series.

This year’s concert repertoire has included Britten’s A Boy Was Bom, one of

the most challenging and rewarding a cappella pieces ofthe twentieth century;

Poulenc’s Mass in G Major, Prayers ofSt. Francis, and Petites Voix; and William 

Byrd’s Massfor Five Voices. The Master Singers have adapted their 2008-2009

programming to include a number ofworks from the “American Songbook”

by Robert Shaw and Alice Parker, which serve as the basis for their concert in 

honor ofthe reopening ofthe American galleries at the National Gallery ofArt.

Master Singers conductor Erik Reid Jones is currently the director of

choral and vocal activities at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West 

Virginia, as well as the founder and artistic director ofthe Master Singers.

An active composer and clinician, Jones earned a doctor ofmusic degree

at the University of Maryland, College Park, a master’s degree in choral

conducting at the University ofCincinnati Conservatory of Music, and a

bachelor of arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

2,722nd Concert

April 18, 2009

Saturday, 3:30 pm

West Building, East Garden Court

Greater South Jersey Chorus

William Kinsey, artistic director and conductor

Established in 1992, the Greater South Jersey Choms is a ninety-seven

member, mixed-voice choms that has earned widespread attention for its

diverse repertoire, beautiful sound, and thoughtful interpretations. With a

strong commitment to community outreach, the choms has performed for 

the Camden County Park Commission, The Gloucester County Chamber of

Commerce, the Pennsauken Community Center, and local Rotary clubs. It

has lent its musical gifts to numerous fundraisers and ceremonies, including

the Linda Creed Breast Cancer Foundation; several fundraisers for victims

of Hurricane Katrina, including one held at Carnegie Hall for the Southern

Chorale from the University of Mississippi; and a fundraiser for a New Jersey

boy who is fighting Mitochondrial disease. In 2006, the choms performed at 

a memorial service commemorating the fifth anniversary ofthe September 11

attacks, held at Freedom Park in Medford. In addition, the Choms was also

honored to sing at the opening and closing ceremonies ofthe traveling

Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall in the same park.

For its spring concert in 2008, the Greater South Jersey Choms distributed

free concert tickets and educational study guides to local German language

teachers for their students to have an opportunity to hear Johannes Brahms’

Zigeunerlieder (Gypsy Songs) sung in German. The Choms has also performed

at area grammar schools, demonstrating to young children that choral music

is a life-long activity. In 2009, the Choms received the second highest number

ofvotes among all New Jersey choral groups for the Discover Jersey Arts

People’s Choice Awards. Next month, the Choms will perform Carl Orff’s

Carmina Burana.

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2,723rd Concert 

April 19, 2009

Sunday, 1:30 pm

West Building, East Garden Court

Central Bucks High School West Choir

Joseph Ohrt, artistic director and conductor

The five performing choirs of Central Bucks High School-West in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, comprise one ofthe most respected choral programs

in the United States. Having presented close to 350 world premieres of

works by composers from around the globe, West Choirs serve as pioneers

of and advocates for contemporary composition. In addition to two previous 

appearances at the National Gallery, the choirs have performed frequently

in Washington at the Basilica ofthe National Shrine ofthe Immaculate 

Conception, the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle, the John F. Kennedy

Center for the Performing Arts, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Cathedral, the Pentagon, and the White House. The choirs have also performed

in major venues throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. They

have given special performances for heads ofstate including President

Clinton and Hilary Clinton, Presidents De Klerk and Mandela of South 

Africa, President Havel ofthe Czech Republic, and Prime Minister Perez of

Israel. In honor ofthe reopening ofthe American Galleries, the Chamber

Choir sings an all-world-premiere program of music by American composers Rene Clausen, David Conte, Richard Fitzgerald, James Mulholland, Francisco Nunez, Joseph Ohrt, Matthew Samson, and Brian Schmidt written

specifically for this occasion.

Conductor and artistic director Dr. Joseph Ohrt studied under master

teachers Joseph Flummerfelt, Fraulce Hassemann, Margaret, Hillis, Dennis 

Keene, Doreen Rao, and Gregg Smith. He is a prolific composer and is a

contributing author to several texts on secondary choral music education.

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2,724th Concert 

April 19, 2009

Sunday, 3:30 pm

West Building, East Garden Court

18th Street Singers

Benjamin Olinsky, artistic director and conductor

In 2004 a small group ofyoung people living, learning, and working in the 

Washington, DC, area set out to find a serious musical outlet that would fulfill

the social needs and fit the time constraints ofyoung adults in the District of

Columbia. Having sung for most oftheir lives, they decided to form a choir.

Thus was born the 18th Street Singers, named after the road along which

many ofthem live and play.

The ensemble grew quickly to its current forty-voice membership.

The singers have a wide range ofmusical backgrounds, from professional

musicians to former school choir members, and they are bound together

by dedication to musicality and passion for performance. As a new addition

to the Washington choral scene, they intend to bring a fresh, spirited

interpretation to traditional choral music. Their diverse repertoire ranges

from classical to contemporary, from Maurice Durufle’s Ubi Caritas to the 

American spiritual Great Day to folk and love songs such as Shenandoah

and Loch Lomond.

This is the 18th Street Singers’ first concert appearance at the National

Gallery, but they have provided spirited and uplifting leadership for holiday

caroling in the Rotunda on two previous occasions.

n