The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay
Principal Chorus of The Florida Orchestra and Artist-In-Residence at the USF School of Music
  • Home
  • Tickets & Events
    • Measure by Measure
    • Virtual Choirs
  • About
    • Join Our Email List
    • About The Master Chorale >
      • Brett Karlin - Artistic Director
      • Milestones
      • Testimonials
      • Concert History
      • Board of Trustees
      • Staff
    • Outreach
    • Employment
    • Hire a Choir
    • Contact Us
  • Audition
  • Recordings
  • Donate
    • Music Education
    • Individual Giving
    • Planned Giving
    • Corporate Sponsorship >
      • Corporate Sponsorship Benefits
  • Blog
  • Singer's Section

"Tonight I saw a miracle, and it left me in tears."

1/30/2022

0 Comments

 
Written and posted to Facebook by Anne Rosato-Acosta, alto member of The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, and shared with her permission. Thank you, Anne, for sharing your beautiful and inspiring story about performing Jake Runestad's "A Silence Haunts Me" on a program with Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9" with The Florida Orchestra this weekend. We are blessed to have you singing with us!

PictureAnne Rosato-Acosta
Tonight I saw a miracle, and it left me in tears.

When I was sixteen I started having dizzy spells and fainting. My ears rang and rang. I already wore hearing aids, but something was wrong. Seventeen; I’ve been in an arts magnet program for music for three years and wanted to be a performer badly. But then I was diagnosed with a degenerative hearing loss on top of being born hearing impaired. I was told I would likely be deaf by the time I’m forty. I was devastated, but after reading Beethoven’s letter known as the Heiligenstadt Testament I decided to try my best to keep going.

Well, it was my thirty-ninth birthday this week, much of which I’ve been lucky to spend in my first concert series back with Master Chorale of Tampa Bay since the pandemic started. While I am legally deaf I am lucky: I have hearing aids that greatly help me continue to communicate, to hear and sing. What were we singing? I’m glad you asked: A concert all about Beethoven.

First, we performed a peice about Beethoven’s famous aforementioned letter to his brothers where he laments his hearing loss, set to an entirely perceptive and emotional work “A Silence Haunts Me” by Jake Runestad. He talks about the church bells he can’t hear, and I remember the first time I sat on the beach and realized I couldn’t hear the waves anymore. The desperate clamoring on the keys isn’t the accompianist Dr. Rodney Shores having a bad I-forgot-how-to-piano day but sounds rather similar to when I want to sight-read on my keyboard before I’ve had my coffee and put my hearing aids in. The pleading, the trembling and asking of why, not dissimilar to the one I certainly asked as well. And I’m not anywhere cloooooooose to the scope of what Beethoven’s abilities were and if I was devastated, I cannot even imagine how absolutely crushed he must’ve been.

Hearing loss is an invisible disability in that we are often ridiculed or misunderstood. Especially in Beethoven’s time. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it is easy. So to see people leap up to their feet tonight as soon as Beethoven’s Ninth ended, applauding and cheering with such enthusiasm for a piece written by someone who was deaf… I started crying, and I’m crying as I write this. Because even if you don’t know much about Beethoven, everyone knows he couldn’t hear but still wrote such powerful and passionate (not for you, Napoleon) music. It’s just really wonderful to see hundreds of people appreciate that. Even if it was just for a moment before they go back to the parking garage to be stuck for twenty minutes and then return to their homes and lives - this guy wrote this piece two hundred years ago that people are still talking about.

I wish I could tell them what he might’ve heard, if he was there. If he heard anything at all at the conclusion of this premiere back in his time, it would sound something like a distant rumble of hums of percussion above water and he was in it. Maybe just the vibrations from the applause with no actual pitch to it, which would explain why he had to be notified of the audience’s reaction. But as I said (in my goofy manner, but with every bit of truth to it), my favorite part of the concert would be the end of “A Silence Haunts Me”. For a minute, the audience gets to hear like Beethoven. Like me. Like the entire deaf and hard of hearing community. The notes fade away but the choir is still singing - but there’s nothing to be heard. In a time where we live in social distancing, covered faces, isolation and more it’s important to find the times we are all united. In that moment everyone in the room was together, experiencing firsthand a small miracle. For one minute, Jake Runestad, Master Chorale, Brett Karlin and the opportunity granted by The Florida Orchestra all made the invisible disability, -visible-.

I think back to the time I went to Vienna, Austria in my twenties and visited Beethoven’s grave. It was quiet, and his prominent site was among many of the greats in a spot dubbed “Musician’s Row”. There, I wrote a single word on a bit of paper and tucked it into the flowers I laid on his grave.
​
“Danke.” (Thanks.)

TICKET Info
0 Comments

A Silence Haunts Me

1/22/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
​This masterful piece, "A Silence Haunts Me" written by Jake Runestad, with words by Todd Boss, brings you through Beethoven's heartbreaking and emotional journey of the impending loss of his hearing. The Master Chorale will perform  "A Silence Haunts Me" , conducted by Brett Karlin, on the same program with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with The Florida Orchestra, conducted by Michael Francis.

TICKETS & INFO
Button above links to The Florida Orchestra

Performances

  • Friday, January 28 - 8:00 PM - Straz Center, Tampa
  • Saturday, January 29 - 8:00 PM - Mahaffey Theater, St. Pete
  • ​Sunday, January 30 - 7:30 PM - Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater
​Health and Safety
Face masks are required in all concert venues, regardless of vaccination status.
The Straz Center has additional requirements related to performances at their hall. For full details, click here.

About "A Silence Haunts Me"

"A masterpiece." - Dale Warland

"A piece that left so many deeply touched and transformed. Profound and unforgettable." - Elena Sharkova

"I have never felt closer to a composer of the past as I did at the end as the sound faded away and all we could do is imagine. It was a profound experience." - Andrew Minear

"You brought tears to my eyes as I really felt Beethoven's heartbreaking journey for the first time. It was unforgettable." - Angie Gocur
​

"I think Jake Runestad just broke the choral mold in the most amazing and beautifully haunting of ways. Very seldom have I heard the premiere of a piece where I thought: 'Wow, that was truly transformational.'" - Paul Aitken

The Story

In 2017, Jake Runestad travelled to Leipzig, Germany to be present at the premiere of Into the Light, an extended work for chorus and orchestra commissioned by Valparaiso University to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther nailing his Ninety-Seven Theses to a door in Wittenberg, thereby kicking off the Reformation. While traveling after the concert, Runestad found himself in the Haus der Musik Museum in Vienna, where he encountered a facsimile of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament.

It was the first time he had read the famous text, which is almost equal parts medical history (including Beethoven’s first admission to his brothers that he was going deaf), last will and testament, suicide note, letter of forgiveness, and prayer of hope. Runestad was flabbergasted and found himself thinking about Beethoven, about loss, and about the tragedy of one of the greatest musicians of all time losing his hearing. Beethoven put it this way, “Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed.”

When the American Choral Directors Association offered the Raymond C. Brock Commission to Runestad for the 2019 National Conference, he took many months to settle on a topic, finally deciding on setting Beethoven’s words. While researching Beethoven’s output around the time of the letter, Runestad discovered that Beethoven wrote a ballet, Creatures of Prometheus, just a year before penning his testament. “Beethoven must have put himself into Prometheus’ mindset to embody the story,” Runestad noted. “Just as Prometheus gifted humankind with fire and was punished for eternity, so did Beethoven gift the fire of his music while fighting his deafness, an impending silence. What an absolutely devastating yet inspiring account of the power of the human spirit. In the moment of his loss —when he wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament — he had no idea how profound his legacy would be” (“legacy” being one of the themes of this ACDA’s anniversary conference).

Because of the length of the letter, a verbatim setting was impractical; Runestad once again turned to his friend and frequent collaborator, Todd Boss, to help. Boss’s poem, entitled A Silence Haunts Me – After Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament creates a scena — a monologue in Beethoven’s voice for choir. The poem is both familiar and intimate; Boss has taken the fundamentals of Beethoven’s letter and spun it into a libretto that places the reader/listener into the same small, rented room as one of the most towering figures of the Romantic Era.

To those words, Runestad has brought his full array of dramatic understanding and compositional skill; A Silence Haunts Me sounds more like a self-contained monologue from an opera than a traditional choral piece. Runestad, who has published three operas to date, shows his flair for melding music with text even more dramatically than in familiar settings like Let My Love Be Heard and Please Stay. He sets the poetry with an intense, emotional directness and uses some of Beethoven’s own musical ideas to provide context. Stitched into the work are hints at familiar themes from the Moonlight Sonata, the 3rd, 6th, and 9th Symphonies, and Creatures of Prometheus, but they are, in Runestad’s words, “filtered through a hazy, frustrated, and defeated state of being.”

In wrestling with Beethoven, with legacy, and with loss, Runestad has done what he does best—written a score where the poetry creates the form, where the text drives the rhythm, where the melody supports the emotional content, and where the natural sounding vocal lines, arresting harmony, and idiomatic accompaniment — in this case, piano in honor of Beethoven — come together to offer the audience an original, engaging, thoughtful, and passionate work of choral art.
​
Program note by Dr. Jonathan Talberg
0 Comments

Mid-Week Preparations for Handel's Messiah This Weekend

12/15/2021

0 Comments

 

Come celebrate the beauty of Handel's Messiah

Picture
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God."

The awe and beauty of Handel's Messiah is not only in its masterful musical and lyrical composition but also in its story telling. From each movement, each of the 3 parts, we are on a journey together, exploring the birth, the sacrifice, and the resurrection. The Hallelujah chorus, which is so familiar to us during the Christmas season, actually comes at death, although Christmas, of course, celebrates the birth of Jesus. 

Through Handel's narrative, we find ourselves among the prophetic ("Behold, a virgin shall conceive"); among sarcastic, sneering crowds ("if He delight in Him, let Him deliver Him"), mocking and treacherous; among blithe, naive people ("All we like sheep"); and also within the precious moments of great love and empathy ("thine has led captivity captive and received gifts for thine enemies"). And in the end, "Part the third" celebrates the resurrection, finishing with a grand and massive Amen. 

Messiah is a musical journey that is part of our collective history. As we move through the holiday season, we often revel in traditions and memories of family and friends, memories of comfort, and opportunities for peace and connection. Moments of reflection and care in the present may be especially important this year as we emerge into venues and gather again to experience the magic of music in this festive season. Michael Francis, conductor of the The Florida Orchestra for the Messiah asks us to "commit to the masterpiece that it is" with our "quorum of knowledge", and each of us on the stage and in the audience commit ourselves to this masterpiece, together. 

Join us for our performances with The Florida Orchestra at the Straz in Tampa on December 17 at 8pm, Mahaffey Theater in St. Pete on December 18 at 8pm, and Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater on December 19 at 2pm. 

Tickets and Information

Picture
Handel's Messiah - Master Chorale of Tampa Bay with The Florida Orchestra :: Mahaffey Theater, St Petersburg, Florida 2019
0 Comments

Guest Composers/Conductors Join MCTB for Online Rehearsals

4/23/2021

0 Comments

 
Rehearsing online has it's silver lining in the sense that we have had more opportunities to connect with and learn from the composers and conductors of the contemporary choral music on our program.  We were delighted that Marques Garrett, Susan Brumfield, and Jake Runestad were all able to join us and lead online rehearsals in preparation for our virtual choir recordings of their music. In addition, each of them presented workshops to our singers on spirituals as a musical genre, non-idiomatic choral music of Black composers, and American folk singing.

​All three virtual choirs will premiere on our American Voices Virtual Concert on April 24, 2021 at 7pm. 
  • "My Heart Be Brave" by Marques Garrett
  • "No Time" by Susan Brumfield
  • "Flower Into Kindness" by Jake Runestad
Picture
Marques Garrett
Picture
Susan Brumfield
Picture
Jake Runestad
0 Comments

​From the Risers: Singing Virtually and Spiritually

4/23/2021

0 Comments

 
by Brian Hathaway
“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”

To me the larger nugget of wisdom in this saying is that things don’t always go our way in life, but when we encounter an obstacle, how we respond is a measure of who we are and what we are made of. We can either accept defeat or we can decide that we will overcome the obstacle by turning it into an opportunity to achieve a greater good.

In March 2020, the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay was handed a big lemon in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we were in the final preparations for a concert of Bach’s “St. John Passion” with The Florida Orchestra, we all went into hiatus as part of efforts to slow the spread of the pandemic. Live singing was put on the back burner as arts organizations around the world cancelled rehearsal and concert schedules. 
The Master Chorale Board and staff, with the advice of our Artistic Advisory Committee, decided to continue rehearsing and singing in whatever way we could, including the production of new virtual choirs with a top-tier virtual choir production company, Arts Laureate. 

Our Artistic Director selected the Spiritual “My Lord, What a Mornin’”, arranged by Harry Thacker Burleigh as our first submission for the 2020-2021 season. Harry Burleigh (12/2/1866-9/12/1949) was an American classical composer, arranger, and professional singer known for his baritone voice. The first Black composer instrumental in developing characteristically American music, Burleigh made Black music available to classically trained artists both by introducing them to spirituals and by arranging spirituals in a more classical form. “My Lord, What a Mornin’” was one of the many Spirituals he arranged.

Burleigh was accepted, with a scholarship, to the prestigious National Conservatory of Music in New York. He obtained the scholarship with the help of Frances MacDowell, the mother of composer Edward MacDowell, and would eventually play double bass in the Conservatory's orchestra. To help support himself during his studies, Burleigh worked for Mrs. MacDowell as a handyman. Reputedly, Burleigh, who later became known worldwide for his excellent baritone voice, sang spirituals while cleaning the Conservatory's halls, which drew the attention of the conservatory's director, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, who asked Burleigh to sing for him. Burleigh introduced Antonín Dvořák to Black American music, which influenced some of Dvořák's most famous compositions and led him to say that Black music would be the basis of American classical music.
One of the things I like about having Brett as our Artistic Director is that, in addition to helping us master the music we are learning, Brett devotes rehearsal time to educating us about the music we are learning. I have found that being more informed makes me a better singer and that we collectively as an ensemble are better able to present the music as the composer intended for it to be heard. With the advent of our virtual choir rehearsals, Brett has brought guest composers and conductors into our virtual rehearsals who have helped us develop a more refined understanding of the music.
For “My Lord, What a Mornin’”, Brett reached out to Patrick Dailey, who is on the voice faculty of Tennessee State University. Mr. Dailey is a 2012 graduate of Morgan State University and received his Master of Music from Boston University. While at Tennessee State University he established the Big Blue Opera Initiatives (BBOI) and the annual Harry T. Burleigh Spiritual Festival. As a subject matter expert on Harry Burleigh, we couldn’t have asked for a better guest contributor.

Mr. Dailey, in addition to his creation of the Harry T. Burleigh Spiritual Festival, has done considerable research into the Spiritual as a musical genre. Mr. Dailey mentioned that the Spiritual should be characterized by a “rich, deep, full sound” supported by the desire to go “deeper into ourselves” in expressing the music. In one exercise he led us ​​during the rehearsal, we practiced the call and response tradition that is alive in so many Spirituals and used “bound for Canaan’s land” as our practice vehicle. It was such a pleasure to work with Mr. Dailey and I came away from our encounter with a deeper understanding of the Spiritual that informed my individual practice and my participation in the virtual choir experience.
Picture
Patrick Dailey
We kicked off the season and began virtual rehearsals via Zoom on September 8th, 2020 and submitted our individual videos to Arts Laureate by Sunday, October 18th. In total, 83 singers submitted videos and it was now up to Brett to review all of them and work with Arts Laureate to create the beautiful video that you see here.
“My Lord, What a Mornin’” premiere on the Master Chorale YouTube Channel on Sunday, November 22nd and I watched it on the day of the premiere with a combination of awe and gratitude. It was pure joy to see the faces of my friends and singing colleagues in the Master Chorale together, making beautiful music again. There are a lot of virtual choir videos available and I have watched many, but Arts Laureate produced a product that was a beautiful reflection of our Chorale and its members. Our long hiatus was at an end; the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay was back, and the lemonade tasted great!
Picture
0 Comments

From the Risers: Encountering "Messiah"

4/6/2020

0 Comments

 

Messiah Radio Broadcast on Classical WSMR 89.1 & 103.9

April 12: Handel’s Messiah 
(special broadcast for Easter beginning at 2 pm)
Classical WSMR 89.1 and 103.9 FM radio and stream online at 
WSMR.org

TFO has canceled concerts through at least May 10 to reduce the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), but live recordings of 13 full concerts will keep the music going through June 11 and beyond. For the first time, broadcasts will be available on-demand at WSMR.org for 45 days after the air-date.
​

Master Chorale also featured on:
​May 21: Deep Field: A Cosmic Experience at 7pm
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL BROADCAST SCHEDULE
Listen Online
Picture
Picture
Picture

From the Risers: Encountering ​Messiah

by Brian Hathaway
G.F. Handel’s Messiah has remained a perennial favorite, primarily performed around the Christmas Season.  My own personal connection with Messiah began many years ago, culminating in a performance of the complete work in December 2019 with The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay and The Florida Orchestra.
Picture
The Florida Orchestra & The Master Chorale performing Handel's "Messiah", December 2019 - Idlewild Baptist Church, Lutz
MORE PHOTOS BELOW
My journey to Messiah
It all started with Ruth Passenger way back in the late 1950’s.  I was a student at Roessleville Elementary School in Colonie, NY just west of Albany.  Miss Passenger was our music teacher and I remember attending her classes which were held in the school cafeteria, as there was no space for a dedicated Music Room.  Instruction materials included a roll away blackboard, textbooks and a portable record player, which back then were called Victrolas, even if they were not made by RCA Victor.
I still can clearly see Miss Passenger in my mind’s eye.  What I remember most about her was her love of music and her desire to connect us with the beauty inherent in great music.  I can still remember a pivotal moment when she played a recording of “The Swan”, from Camille Saint-Seans’ Carnival of the Animals. I was awestruck. Although I can’t clearly remember when it happened, I am sure she also introduced us to some of the choruses from Handel’s Messiah, most certainly “For Unto Us a Child is Born” and the “Hallelujah Chorus”.
Miss Passenger must have detected a spark within me.  She encouraged me to study an instrument (Violin) and to join the school chorus.  When I was in sixth grade, I was one of three or four students representing Roessleville Elementary selected to sing in the Suburban Council Honor Chorus. I still remember the music festival concert that we performed in and can still name the song titles we sang.
Following elementary school, I took music classes in Junior High, but did not join chorus, as extra-curricular activities were more difficult to attend, with junior high school being farther away.  I recall about that time my parents bought a console TV that had an AM-FM radio built in. The FM band was something new, and in listening to it, I found a classical station, WFLY in Troy. Now, here was an opportunity to hear more of the music that Miss Passenger introduced me to.  I remember that I was seen by my friends as someone different, because they would talk about Rock and Roll, and I would chime in talking about Mozart or Beethoven. Don’t get me wrong. I liked Rock and Roll but hearing Beethoven’s 5th Symphony piqued my interest quite a bit more than Elvis.
As I was starting to enter high school, my parents decided to invest in a Stereo and a shopping mall was built just a half mile from my home with the first R. H. Macy store outside of NYC. Now, I could invest in vinyl and listen to the music I wanted to when I wanted to. Macy’s had a decent sized record department and as I perused the shelves, one album stood out over all the others.  It was Handel’s Messiah, a Columbia double LP by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I had to have it! I plunked down my hard-earned cash for my first purchase of a classical album and couldn’t wait to play it on our new stereo.  I listened to that album repeatedly and dove into the cover notes to learn all I could about this marvelous work. I treasure that album and still have it stored away with my vinyl LP’s.
Messiah became one of my favorite classical works and I always pulled it out for listening, particularly during the Christmas and Easter Seasons.  High school, then college came and went, then marriage, four years in the Air Force and raising a young family. Although I always sang in church, I did not have time to pursue other musical activities until I joined The Master Chorale.
Joining The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay
Several of my singing colleagues sang with The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, and they encouraged me to consider joining the ensemble, and in 2007 I auditioned and was invited to join.  During Master Chorale concerts we sang selected choruses from Messiah, but the opportunities to sing all the choruses didn’t present itself until 2019. Along the way, we sang selected choruses during a performance with The Florida Orchestra in 2017.  During that same year, I had an opportunity to sing the Christmas portion of Messiah with the Lakeland Choral Society and The Imperial Symphony. When I saw Messiah on The Florida Orchestra schedule for December 2019, my hopes went up, especially after I learned that three of the four concerts would be “full roster” concerts encompassing all the available singers in The Master Chorale.

Upcoming Auditions

August, 2020
Sign-up Online
Prepare Handel's Messiah in five weeks... GO!
The challenge we were faced with was a reduced amount of time to prepare the Chorale for the Messiah performances, with only five weeks to prepare after finishing our November concert series with Eric Whitacre and The Florida Orchestra.  This was the shortest preparation time I had seen for a major work with the Chorale. Most of the cadences allowed for about 8 weeks of preparation time. Even though we had a lot of new singers, I was buoyed by the knowledge that many of our members had repeated exposure to Messiah, and these folks would provide the foundation to support the ensemble’s task of mastering the music.  I also felt confident in Brett Karlin, our Artistic Director, who was passionate about early music and Messiah in particular.
Three Rehearsals, Four Concerts, Five Venues, Over Seven Days... right before Christmas.
Christmas preparations always create a hectic time, and this year was no exception.  Because we were performing Messiah on four different days, we had to start our concert rehearsals on Monday instead of Tuesday.  This meant that we would be singing every day for seven days. I called it the “Messiah Marathon”. When concert week arrived, our first task was the piano dress rehearsal with Florida Orchestra Director Michael Francis.  We engaged in selective reviews of each chorus with Maestro Francis applying his practiced ear to the defining segments of each chorus, helping us shape the sound to bring out the best combination of our voices to combine with the orchestra.  By 9:30 PM we had completed the rehearsal. Now it was “game on” with the orchestra and then dress rehearsal with the soloists and the orchestra. It was with a sense of confidence that we proceeded on to our four performances. We were ready!
Most Memorable Moments
With the "Messiah Marathon" now over after three rehearsals and four performances in seven days, it was probably the best concert series I experienced in my 13 years with The Master Chorale and The Florida Orchestra. We had standing ovations, whoops and cheers after every performance.  In the discussions I had with concert-goers after each performance, I heard words like “superlative”, “best ever”, and “amazing”. The soloists were all just outstanding. Some of my most memorable moments:
  • Tenor Matthew White's entrance of "Comfort ye" following the orchestra's overture. It was like a "voice crying in the wilderness".
  • Mezzo Allyson McHardy singing "Behold a virgin shall conceive", with her voice just silky smooth setting the stage for the chorus "O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion".
  • Baritone John Brancy entering the stage "in character", glaring at the orchestra and audience before launching into "Why do the nations rage". He told me backstage that it was his favorite part of Messiah.
  • Soprano Helene Brunet absolutely radiant while singing "I know that my redeemer liveth". I told her backstage it melted my heart when she sang it.
  • Principal Trumpet Robert Smith absolutely owning the instrument while playing "The Trumpet shall sound".
  • Concertmaster Jeff Multer's flawless playing of the violin accompaniment to Helene Brunet's singing in "If God be for us".
  • The Master Chorale singing "Since by man came death" especially the pianissimo a capella entrance at the beginning.
  • Maestro Michael Francis' constant visual feedback to us in the choir as we adapted to changing acoustics in each venue and the joy he showed on his face as we made wonderful music together.
  • The Florida Orchestra's demonstrated musicality throughout the entire performance. It was pure pleasure seeing and hearing them play. What a joy it is to work with them!
Thank you so much to Brett Karlin and all in The Master Chorale who prepared this monumental work in just five weeks.  Over 60 years ago when I first heard music from Messiah emanating from that little Victrola in Miss Passenger’s music class, I never dreamed that I would participate in performing it in front of literally thousands of people, helping to bring Handel’s sacred oratorio to life in concert halls and churches.  The joy and wonder I saw on the faces of audience members and kudos I heard following each concert are memories that I will always cherish.
Picture
Listen to the broadcast of this concert on April 12 beginning at 2pm on Classical WSMR 89.1 & 103.9, stream online at wsmr.org.

0 Comments

Coronavirus Cancels Performances of Bach's St. John Passion

3/13/2020

0 Comments

 
Dear Friends of The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay,

We are saddened to say that the difficult decision has been made to cancel all three of our performances of Bach's St. John Passion with The Florida Orchestra scheduled for March 20, 21, and 22. We exist to bring people together through music, but physically bringing people together is not the healthiest decision right now.

While we are deeply disappointed that we will not be able to share this incredible work with you after 10 weeks of intense and diligent rehearsals, we are vastly more concerned with the health and well-being of our community and especially of those that are most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Click here for The Florida Orchestra's update (published 3/13/20) which addresses questions about tickets purchased for the St. John Passion performances.

Our concert plans for our "Two Cathedrals" performances on April 24 & 26 are currently going on as planned. However, these plans could change. If we find it necessary to make any future changes, we will let you know as soon as we can.  

Please consider supporting The Master Chorale and The Florida Orchestra, as well as other arts organizations in our community, with extra love and tax-deductible treasure. We will all undoubtedly experience significant losses from the cancellation of these and other planned events. 

We thank you for being there for us and look forward to bringing you, our community, together again through stellar concerts in the near future. 

Warmest regards,

Brett Karlin, Artistic Director & Kara Dwyer, Managing Director
Donate
0 Comments

From the Risers: Haydn's Celestial Connection

3/18/2019

1 Comment

 
by Brian Hathaway
​I have a confession to make.  I am an unabashed space geek.  I have always been fascinated by astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology.  When the race to the Moon with the Soviet Union heated up during the 1960’s I was there to witness it all.  I was 12 years old when John Glenn orbited the earth in 1962 and 19 years old when Apollo 11 went to the moon and back in 1969.  That passion has not waned.  Several years ago, while attending a lecture by six-time Space Shuttle veteran astronaut F. Story Musgrave, I told him “Boy, I would love to spend an hour with you over a cup of coffee.”  He told me “Yes….I could see it in your eyes…..you’re a believer.”
​So, what does that have to do with Franz Josef Haydn and “The Creation”?  Well in a manner of speaking, Haydn was a space geek too!  But….I am getting ahead of myself a bit.  First, there is the back story about how Papa Haydn came to compose his monumental oratorio, “The Creation.”
​Those who have researched Franz Josef Haydn’s “The Creation” are aware that Haydn did not start composing an oratorio until late in life.  The catalyst for his decision came from his trips to London in 1791 and 1794.  Following the death of Prince Niklaus I in 1790, Anton, his successor at the Esterhazy Palace, had no interest in music and disbanded the Court Orchestra and released Haydn from his responsibilities.  Anton’s father prior to his death granted Haydn a pension of 1000 Florins per year for the rest of his life.  For the first time in decades, he was free to travel and accepted the invitation of violinist and promoter Johann Peter Salomon, who acted as concert Manager for Haydn’s first visit to England, to travel there.  He arrived in London on January 1, 1791 and stayed until July 1792.
​Haydn returned to London in January 1794 and stayed into 1795.  During his visits to England, Haydn composed 250 works, a body of work equal to or larger than the career output of many other composers of his time.  It was during these visits that Haydn was introduced to the oratorio form.  George Frederic Handel was a revered composer in England, and Haydn attended festivals that featured Handel’s music.  One such festival had over three thousand singers performing Handel’s “Messiah,” the likes of which Haydn had never seen nor heard.  He was absolutely dumbfounded by the experience.
G. H. Purday (1799-1885) reported that his music-seller father had been present at that very moment.  Josef Haydn mentioned that he would like to write an oratorio but was wondering where to start.  François Barthélemon, leader of the London orchestra that played Haydn's symphonies, picked up a Bible and said: "There, take that, and begin at the beginning."
​Upon leaving England in 1795, Johann Salomon presented Haydn with a poem titled “The Creation of the World.”  Apparently, the poem had been offered to Handel, but he never set it to music.  Haydn presented the poem to his friend, mentor, and librettist Baron Gottfried van Swieten when he returned to Vienna, and it was van Swieten who used the poem to develop a libretto for “The Creation” in both English and German.
Now, this is where it gets interesting.  On June 15, 1792 during his first London tour, Josef Haydn visited astronomer William Herschel at his observatory near Slough. In addition to being an accomplished musician and composer, William Herschel was famous for discovering the planet Uranus ten years earlier.  William Herschel was a consummate lens grinder, and he and his sister Caroline spent hours and hours grinding ever larger lenses to construct telescopes to view the heavens in great detail.  During his career, William Herschel built over 400 telescopes.  Some say that Herschel invited Haydn to view the heavens through his main telescope, a rather massive construction in the yard behind his home that was 40 feet long and had mirrors 48 inches in diameter.  For 50 years, it was the largest telescope in the world.
​There is only one problem.  The guest book at the observatory in Slough for that day shows that Haydn visited during the day, when it was not possible to view the heavens. Furthermore, William Herschel was not there that day and was visiting friends in Scotland.  However, his sister Caroline, who was his assistant, was there, and she most likely took Haydn on a tour of the observatory and had discussions with him about their observations.  
​Of course, in 1792 there were no cameras.  To document their observations, astronomers would sketch them, and it is a good possibility that Caroline supported the descriptions of the “wonder of His works” with sketches of the more captivating images, such as Saturn with its rings, or drawings of nebulae, such as the NGC 1514 Planetary Nebula discovered in 1790 by William Herschel.  In fact, on 26 February 1783, Caroline made her own first discovery. She had found a nebula that was not included in the Messier catalogue. That same night, she independently discovered NGC 205, the second companion star cluster of the Andromeda Galaxy.
​One can only imagine what went through Haydn’s mind as he listened to Caroline Herschel and looked at those sketches of the heavens.  Part of the discussion could have included the nebulae they were discovering and their role as the birthplace of stars.  In a stroke of genius, Haydn starts out “The Creation” with a musical depiction of chaos before the formation of the Universe.  One of the most profound moments to me is when the chorus begins singing “and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said: ‘let there be light’, and there was LIGHT!”  What a tremendous opening!  Could the inspiration for that opening have come from Caroline Herschel, a diminutive woman with a height of only four feet two inches?
​She was a noted astronomer, accomplished lens grinder, also a highly regarded singer and soloist in a time when female scientists and soloists were as scarce as hen’s teeth.  My hat goes off to Caroline.  She became an acknowledged expert in astronomy and was honored for her work.  The gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society was awarded to her in 1828 "for her recent reduction, to January 1800, of the 2,500 nebulae discovered by her illustrious brother, which may be considered as the completion of a series of exertions probably unparalleled either in magnitude or importance in the annals of astronomical labour."  This was the first time a woman was ever honored with such an award in Great Britain.
​Whatever the case may be, we are left with a profound musical legacy in Haydn’s “The Creation.”  We are also left with an amazing scientific legacy through the work of William and Caroline Herschel.  We are better off for having been exposed to their collective genius.  The last time I sang “The Creation” by Haydn, my focus was on the exuberant tone of much of the music.  This time, I will be thinking about the limitless universe that Haydn came to appreciate and depict in his music.  I will also be thinking of Caroline Herschel, a woman way ahead of her time personally and scientifically who may have been Haydn’s celestial connection.
Picture
​You too can experience “The Creation” by Franz Josef Haydn and draw your own conclusions.  The Florida Orchestra and The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay will present “The Creation” on Friday, March 22 at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, on Saturday March 23 at Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, and on Sunday, March 24 at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater.  

Tickets
1 Comment

From the Risers: Drama, Beauty & Defiance - The Story of the Verdi Requiem

3/22/2018

0 Comments

 
by Brian Hathaway
Picture
​The performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem by The Florida Orchestra and The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay are only about a month away on the weekend of April 20-22.  As part of The Florida Orchestra’s Masterwork Series, Verdi’s Requiem is one of the most dramatic Requiems in the choral repertoire. 
 
When I prepare for a Masterwork Concert, there are several components to my preparation, including score study, individual practice, and rehearsal with my Master Chorale colleagues.  To further enhance my understanding of the music, I research the history of the music, so I can better appreciate what the composer was trying to achieve in composing and performing it.  During my research for this concert series, I uncovered several facts about Verdi and his Requiem.  Some of these facts are very well known, while others may qualify as trivial or little-known facts.  I would like to share the facts I uncovered.

​Giuseppe Verdi was a man of great spirituality. But, after his childhood, when he walked three miles to church every Sunday morning to his job as organist in Busetto, he distanced himself from the Church. Years later, when he was famous and wealthy, he would drive his wife Giuseppina to church, but wouldn't go in with her. He was never an atheist; simply, as Giuseppina put it, "a very doubtful believer." Like Brahms' A German Requiem completed five years earlier, Verdi's Requiem Mass is a deeply religious work written by a great skeptic.  Verdi famously wrote, “For some virtuous people a belief in God is necessary. Others, equally perfect, while observing every precept of the highest moral code, are happier believing in nothing.”
Tickets & Info
Verdi Requiem
April 20, 21, 22, 2018
with The Florida Orchestra
& The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay

​Michael Francis, conductor

Janice Chandler-Eteme, soprano
Nancy Maltusby, mezzo
Derek Taylor, tenor
Tim Mix, bass-baritone

​The Master Chorale prepared by Dr. Beth Gibbs

The story of Verdi’s Requiem begins in 1868, with the death of Gioachino Rossini in Paris. Verdi suggested that the city of Bologna, where Rossini grew up and first tasted success, honor him with a composite “Messe per Rossini,” commissioning separate movements from Italy's leading composers. The idea was approved, and the various movements were assigned.  Diplomatically, Verdi was given the final “Libera me” and the mass was completed, but a performance never took place.
At the time of Rossini's death, Verdi called him "one of the glories of Italy," asking, "When the other one who still lives is no more, what will we have left?" The other one was Alessandro Manzoni, a celebrated poet, and the author of the landmark nineteenth-century novel, “I Promessi Sposi” (The Betrothed), a book Verdi himself had read when he was sixteen.  When Manzoni died on May 22, 1873, Verdi returned to the idea of a requiem.
 
When poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni died, Verdi was too grief-stricken to attend his funeral, and the entire country mourned the loss of one of its leading cultural icons.  Verdi shared the same national aspirations that Manzoni had, and Manzoni’s literature helped fuel an Italian national identity.  Verdi also supported Italian unification, and his last name was used as an acronym for support of unification under Sardinian King Victor Emanuel: Vittorio Emanuel, Rei di Italia (Victor Emanuel, King of Italy).  Following unification in 1860, Verdi served as a Senator.
​Verdi went to the mayor of Milan and proposed composing a memorial in the form of a requiem to honor the memory of Manzoni. Verdi reworked the existing Libera me from the “Messe per Rossini” and incorporated thematic material from it in the other movements. While he was quite sincere in his desire to memorialize Manzoni, Verdi, a successful businessman, was also aware of the commercial possibilities for the Requiem. While he was negotiating with the city of Milan to underwrite the premiere and with the Church to allow women singers to appear, he was also arranging publication and performance royalties.  As part of the arrangement with the city of Milan, Verdi offered to pay for the score printing himself on the condition that Milan assume responsibility for the cost of the performances.
 
The premiere took place in May 22, 1874, at the Church of San Marco as part of a liturgy so no applause was allowed. Women (Soprano Theresa Stolz and Mezzo Maria Waldmann, soloists who performed in Verdi’s European premiere of Aida four years earlier) were given a special exemption to perform by the local Archbishop on the condition that they must be veiled in black and hidden behind a grating.  Verdi also arranged three concert performances at La Scala a few days later which were greeted with great enthusiasm. In the year following the premiere, it was performed all over Italy, in Paris, London, Vienna and even in America. The Requiem had become one of Verdi's most popular compositions.
​Verdi composed his Requiem with Soprano Theresa Stolz and Mezzo Maria Waldmann in mind as the female soloists.  Soprano Stolz has been described as "the Verdian dramatic soprano par excellence, powerful, passionate in utterance, but dignified in manner and secure in tone and control” and premiered many of Verdi’s Operas.  Verdi hired Mezzo Waldmann for the mezzo-soprano role in his Requiem, for which he wrote the Liber Scriptus with her voice in mind. Verdi particularly valued her for the rich, dark color of her lower, contralto register.  For a Paris performance, Verdi revised the Liber Scriptus to allow Maria Waldmann a further solo for future performances.  Previously, the movement had been set for a choral fugue in a classical Baroque style. With its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall performance in May 1875, this revision became the definitive edition.
 
When German conductor, composer, and virtuoso pianist Hans von Bülow, a close friend of Verdi’s rival Richard Wagner, stole a look at the Requiem score just days before the Milan premiere, he offered his famous snap judgment, "Verdi's latest opera, though in ecclesiastical robes," and decided not to attend the concert. When he finally heard it, at a parish performance eighteen years later, he was moved to tears. Bülow wrote to Verdi to apologize, and Verdi replied, with typical generosity, that Bülow might have been right the first time. By then, Verdi had grown accustomed to critical disdain, especially from the followers of Richard Wagner. And he knew that Bülow, who once switched his allegiance from Wagner to Brahms, wasn't the last listener who would change his mind about this music as well.
​Playwright and music critic George Bernard Shaw had a different opinion.  Attending the London premiere, Verdi’s Requiem captivated him.  His first impression stayed with him, as he had the “Libera me” performed at his funeral in 1950. 
 
In January 1901, while staying in Milan, Verdi suffered a stroke. He died a few days later. Arturo Toscanini conducted the vast forces of combined orchestras and choirs composed of musicians from throughout Italy at his funeral service in Milan. To date, it remains the largest public assembly of any event in the history of Italy.

Performance of Defiance

Verdi’s Requiem experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1930’s, and one of the most interesting and disturbing chapters in its history took place between 1942 and 1944, when 16 performances were held in the Nazi concentration camp at Terezin (formerly Theresienstadt) in Czechoslovakia.
The story begins with Rafael Schacter, a pianist and conductor who was a Czech Jew.  On November 30, 1941, he was transported to the Terezin Camp as part of the Holocaust.  Terezin was a former Czech fortress and walled town that was set up as a ghetto for Jews who were later taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other death camps.  Allowed to take only one suitcase, he filled it with items he treasured, including scores from Verdi’s Requiem and Dvorak’s Carnival Overture.
The Nazis tried to make Terezin a model village as an example of how they were treating Jews humanely.  Part of the façade was to create an active cultural environment in the ghetto, so shortly after arriving, Schacter was given the task of assembling a choir of 150 to perform Verdi’s Requiem.  Not having enough scores for all the singers, he taught them the music by rote.  The first performance took place in January 1942. 
It is interesting to note that this Requiem for the dead premiered in January 1942, the same month that SS General Rheinhard Heydrich led the Wannsee Conference that approved the “final solution” to the Jewish question.  Immediately following the premiere, about half the chorus members were loaded on a train bound for Auschwitz.  Rafael Schachter was forced to reconstitute the chorus for the fifteen subsequent concerts as chorus members were either taken away or died in Terezin.  The final concert was performed for members of the International Red Cross, who were visiting the camp at the invitation of the Nazi SS.  Rafael Schachter was finally taken by train to Auschwitz in October 1944, subsequently dying while a prisoner. ​
In a postscript to the Terezin story, it is worth mentioning that Rheinhard Heydrich was also the SS Officer who ordered SS and SA troops to carry out the Kristallnacht in 1938, where Jewish synagogues, homes and businesses were attacked and burned all over Germany. English composer Michael Tippett was appalled by the news of the attacks and decided to memorialize the tragedy in music. His composition, “A Child of Our Time,” is on The Florida Orchestra and Master Chorale schedule for November 9 - 11, 2018, on the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
​Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem has been loved by audiences and performers since its premiere in 1874.  It is recognized as one of the most frequently performed masterworks in the choral repertoire.  For me, I will have a completely different emotional connection to the Requiem because of the research I completed for this blog post. 
 
Foremost in my mind will be the unknown victims who created a work of drama and beauty in the face of death and terror.  I am drawn to recall the opera “Nabucco” by Verdi, where in The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, they sang “let the Lord inspire you a harmony of voices which may instill virtue to suffering.”  For the prisoners of Terezin, the closing “Libera me” (Deliver me) was their most fervent plea for deliverance. 
 

Even if you have listened to recordings of Verdi’s Requiem, the beauty and drama of the music is best experienced during a live performance.  Please consider attending one of our concerts to experience it yourself. 
0 Comments

From the Risers: "Dacci un Dramma!"

3/1/2018

1 Comment

 
By Brian Hathaway
Picture
​Yes!  “Dacci un Dramma!”, or in English “Give us drama!” is the topic of my latest post.  I was drawn to this phrase because the current season of the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay is all about drama, especially the way we create it through our voices in collaboration with The Florida Orchestra.  To make it more interesting, this season is unique in that through four concerts, we take a “grand tour” of the history of creating drama with the voice through several musical genres that go back five hundred years.  Let us take this tour in chronological order, even though the concerts this season do not necessarily follow that order.

​Genre #1: Opera. Opera was the first musical form that combined voices and instruments to create drama as entertainment.  The first opera, “Dafne” was composed by Jacopo Peri in Italy in 1597, although it is now largely lost.  The earliest opera still performed is Claudio Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” composed in 1607.  The opera genre was exported to Germany in 1627 and later to England and France in the mid 1600’s.  As an art form, the opera has been widely performed up until the current time, although the mid to late 19th century is widely recognized as the “golden age of opera”, dominated by Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi.
Picture
​Giuseppe Verdi started composing his Requiem in June 1873, shortly following the death of famed Italian writer and humorist Allessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi met in 1868.  Manzoni’s death was the impetus for Verdi to write a complete Requiem, expanding upon the “Libera me” that he wrote in Rossini’s memory following his death in 1868.  Verdi’s Requiem is not normally regarded as a liturgical Requiem and is primarily performed as a theater piece, and the music is infused with the same level of drama we would encounter in his operas such as “Aida” (1872) or “Othello” (1887).  For me as a singer, I love dramatic moments such as the pounding of the bass drum in the “Dies Irae”, the unison opening of the “Sanctus” or the power of the opening phrase in the “Rex Tremendae”.  The Verdi Requiem will be performed with The Florida Orchestra on the weekend of April 20-22.

Verdi Requiem TICKETS & INFO
Picture
Picture
Genre #2: Musical Theatre.  Musical theatre grew out of the comic operettas of the 1800’s by composers such as Jacques Offenbach in Paris and Johann Strauss Jr. in Vienna.  From 1871 to 1896, William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan collaborated on numerous comic operettas such as “The Pirates of Penzance” and “The Mikado” that poked fun at English society and became internationally famous.  In America composers such as George M. Cohan and Victor Herbert gave musical theatre a distinctively American flavor.  Throughout the first four decades of the 20th Century composers such as Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin popularized the musical theatre genre.  Songs from musicals have become part of The Great American Songbook and an integral part of American culture.
​
In the 1940’s Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma” was the first fully integrated musical, incorporating song and dance to develop the characters and the plot.  The three decades of the 1940’s through 1960’s were marked by the worldwide popularity of the genre spurred on by the availability of original cast recordings and film versions of the musical.  There are so many dramatic moments arising from musical theatre that they are almost too numerous to mention.  Personal favorites of mine are the title song from “Oklahoma,” “I Am a Pirate King” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance,” and “It’s a Grand Night for Singing” from Rodgers and Hammersteins’s “State Fair.”

Concertgoers will be able to hear many of their favorites in the “Celebrate Broadway” concert series with The Master Chorale and The Florida Orchestra during the weekend of April 27-29th.

Celebrate Broadway TICKETS & INFO
Genre #3: The Film/TV Score.  As musical theatre became a dominant force in bringing live music to the masses, the advent of films allowed even more people to experience the way music can combine with the moving picture to add drama and meaning to a story.  The development of talking pictures starting with “The Jazz Singer” in 1927 added the component of sound to movies. This film incorporated a musical play where singer Al Jolson played a cantor’s son who ran away from home to become a famous jazz singer.  The film is recognized as one of the 100 most influential films of all time.
Since then, music has combined with voice to add drama to the movie-going experience.  Many successful pairings were film versions of musicals, such as “Oklahoma” or “My Fair Lady.”  But voices were used in other film genres too, such as Ennio Morricone’s score for “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”  During February, the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay singers joined forces with The Florida Orchestra to present “The Music of Star Trek and Star Wars.”  I am a huge science fiction fan and was able to enjoy this concert as an audience member.
 
The concert opened with the Star Trek original series theme, taking me back to my high school and college days when the series was in its heyday.  In hearing this music exclusive of the TV or movie images, it was easier to concentrate on the beauty of the music and the voices stood out even more, bringing an ethereal feeling to the theme.  Likewise, the addition of voices to the “Star Trek: Into Darkness” film score added to the drama of a conflict between Kirk and the super-being, Khan.
Picture
Picture
​In the “Star Wars” segment of the concert, the vastness of space and the drama of human conflict were brought to life by composer John Williams, one of the greats among movie score composers.  In the “Battle of the Heroes” segment, voices combined with the instrumental score to add drama to the climactic battle between Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi and added a heightened level of finality to Anakin’s descent into the dark side.
 
Like adding spice to food, the addition of voices made the drama of these moments even more palpable, creating lasting impressions that make me want to return to the theater to see the film again.
Picture
Genre #4:  The Video Game.  Since the advent of electronic gaming in the late 1970’s, their complexity of the stories and images has been increasingly coupled with the development of music scores that are now equal to and in some cases exceeding the level of artistic expression in film scores.  We are now light years beyond the “beeps” and “boops” we heard when playing “Pong” or the simple 8-bit compositions we heard when playing “Donkey Kong” almost 40 years ago. 
 
Video game score composition now attracts some of the best composers who have embraced this avenue of artistic expression.  These include Koji Kondo (Legend of Zelda), Jeremy Soule (The Elder Scrolls) and Michael Giacchino (Medal of Honor).  Michael Giacchino also composed music scores for J.J. Abrams, producer of the current generation of Star Trek movies.  Nobuo Uematsu, composer of the Final Fantasy music scores has been composing them for more than two decades, and concerts of his music play to sell-out crowds around the world.

Such was the case on January 26th and 28th, when guest conductor Arnie Roth directed the Florida Orchestra and the Master Chorale Ensemble Singers in the “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy” concert series.  In an interview, Nobuo Uematsu noted that his scores “are the closest thing to large-scale evocative symphonic works from films.” Hearkening back to the opera genre, Uematsu creates leitmotifs for his characters. For example, the Chocobo theme has been present in all the Final Fantasy scores since December 1987.
Arnie Roth, after directing the Final Fantasy Concerts here, noted that if he knew ahead of time how skilled the singers were, he would have programmed even more choral music into the concerts.  What a tribute to my Master Chorale colleagues!
​In conclusion, do you remember what we were discussing 1,300 words ago?  Looking back at the operatic roots of combining the human voice with instruments, we can see a kind of musical karma.  I think if Richard Wagner were alive today, he would enjoy an animated conversation regarding leitmotifs with Nobuo Uematsu.  What is seen through these very broad brush-stroke discussions of musical history is the unmistakable impact the human voice can have on listeners.  The current Master Chorale Season still offers opportunities to experience live music that you will find enjoyable and memorable.  As a singer, it is a joy to be a part of the creative process that takes place when we prepare and present great music for our Tampa Bay community.
 
Dacci un Dramma!    

We are deeply grateful for grant awards from the following organizations, which help make our programs possible.

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
With the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.

​Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

1 Comment
<<Previous

    The Master Chorale Beat


    Categories

    All
    Auditions
    Christmas Carol Competition
    Ensemble Singers
    Festival Of Voices
    From The Risers
    Recordings
    Summer Sing
    The Florida Orchestra
    Tour
    USF Chamber Singers
    Virtual Performances
    Youth Initiative

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    July 2021
    April 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    June 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    August 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

Contact Us
© 2022 The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay. All rights reserved. 
Picture
Picture
"Singing in the Master Chorale allows me to experience the profoundly human and spiritual longings that can be expressed in no other way."  - Dr. M. L. Moore