RCS's Fall Concert, "New York Sings"  Celebrating New York Composers – Featuring:

  • Leonard's Bernstein's revolutionary Mass in a new concert edition which will be performed on Staten Island for the first time
  • The Word, by Galt MacDermot, Staten Island resident and composer of Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona, has dabbled in the sacred with this new work
  • World premier of a new work by emerging composer, David Glorioso, entitled Supplication

Took place at St. Peter's Church on Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 4 p.m

“Blessed Peace” — RCS’s 2011 Fall Concert

MARINA ALEXANDER, RCS Music Director
ROGER WESBY, Wagner College Choir Director
BETH JOHANNING, RCS Youth Chorus Director
 
The Holiday season is about peace, joy and fellowship.  RCS , Wagner College Choirs and RCS Youth Chorus collaborated in a call for "Blessed Peace" on Sunday, December 4, 2011, 4 p.m. at St. Peter's Church, 53 St. Mark's Place, Staten Island, NY 10301.  They reprised the brilliance of Bach with "Dona Nobis Pacem," the last movement of his B Minor Mass; an original work by local composer Barbara Wesby on the three great religions that sprang from the biblical Abraham in her Songs of Abraham, a world premier, and other visions of peace and the holiday season by Edward Elgar, Giovanni Gabrieli and a Hanukkah song by Roger Emerson and John Jacobsen.  The concert concluded with John Rutter's uplifting Gloria.  The audience was invited to join the choruses in a prayer for peace with a traditional round of Dona Nobis Pacem.  All present joined hands and hearts in the truest spirit of the holiday season.
 
A shuttle van was provided from St. Peter's School parking lot off Carroll Place and St. Peter's Place to the church.
 
 
 
Italian Harvest Festival at the Tuscan Gardens, Snug Harbor on Saturday, October 15–Hope you were there!  This grand taste of Tuscany was a feast for the palates of gourmonds and music-lovers alike.  A strong breeze swept through the evergreens, carrying the smell of soup, steak and sausage in the air; the sun was warm and good food was all around!  Canoli and pasta demonstrations, one following the other, filled one corner; samples of lasagna had us queued up for tasting nearby.  Three different kinds of biscotti–almond, fig/pistachio and chocolate nut–were on hand for sampling , along with California wine. Zeppole and fried Oreos were sold by the bandstand, where popular music came through in surround-sound.
Opera lovers, family and friends of RIchmond Choral Society (RCS), gathered in the Gardens at 3 p.m. for the rich sounds of three wonderful soloists who sang arias by Puccini and Bizet.  RCS, under the direction of our music director, Marina Alexander, was the backup for "Harbanera" from Bizet's Carmen, and for the grand finale, "Nessun Dorma," from Puccini's Turandot.
RCS was proud and happy to be a part of the first annual Italian Harvest Festival at Snug Harbor, the home of the Noble Museum, and our weekly rehearsal venue.
 

Our Trip to Greece

On July 17, 2011 in the central plaza of Hermoupolis, on the island of Syros in Greece, choral singers from Canada, France and Greece, high school and college groups among us (four sopranos and two altos from RCS  and Marina Alexander's Arcadian Chorale), we performed the exciting Carmina Burana, in its entirety, "under the stars," on the steps of the main plaza, before an audience of about 500.  Also included in the program were excerpts from Zorba the Greek, two Greek traditional favorites and some Americana.  Peter Tiboris, founder and General Director of the International Festival of the Aegean, directed approximately 350 singers and a full orchestra on a bandstand in front of us.  As you can see in the photos below, some of our audience sat in front of us, others were standing on either side of the bandstand.  We also participated in an all-women's chorus in an all-American program at the Apollo Theater in Hermoupolis.