Led by their brand-new music director Perry So, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra will open its 131st concert season with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, known for its iconic “ode to joy” melody, on Sunday, September 22, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at Woolsey Hall in downtown New Haven. To begin the concert, So has programmed Courtney Bryan and Tazewell Thompson’s 2023 composition Gathering Song, which will feature Grammy Award-Winning Metropolitan Opera star, baritone Eric Greene. Greene will also join the NHSO’s Beethoven soloist quartet with soprano Dr. Lisa Williamson, mezzo-soprano Annie Rosen, and tenor Chad Kranak. Singers from the Heritage Chorale of New Haven, New Haven Chorale, and Yale Glee Club will combine forces for the powerful finale of the Beethoven.
Get TicketsMaestro So says, “We’re kicking off our season with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, his great Ninth Symphony in its 200th anniversary year: a deep dive into the unifying joy that all of us find in music. This piece has taken generations through its harrowing journey in oppressive darkness, holding out false promises of an Eden that never materializes, until a voice pulls us back from the brink and shows us the way out of despair through community and through art. I love that this piece brings solace in bereavement at the same moment that it calls for a radical egalitarianism in art. It says to us: ‘since we are equally human in joy and sadness, together let’s choose the joy that reminds us how much we all share.’ “
Perry So is Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. He began his tenure at the 2024 International Festival of Arts & Ideas in a program celebrating the City of New Haven with classical, jazz, drumming, marching band, soundtracks, mariachi, dance, tabla, and Broadway. So also currently serves as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra (Navarre Symphony Orchestra). He served as Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Conducting Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Artistic Collaborator of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, and on the conducting faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. When he was a student at Yale University, he founded an orchestra and led the undergraduate opera company. He received his training as a conductor initially under James Sinclair and subsequently with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and received First and Special Prizes at the International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg, Russia.
Grammy award-winning American baritone Eric Greene’s current and future engagements include the roles Benny “Kid” Paret in Terence Blanchard’s Champion at the Metropolitan Opera, Escamillo in Carmen at Liceu Barcelona, and he will join the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden for Rigoletto on tour to Japan. In concert, current projects include performances with Musikfest Bremen, Quincena Musical of San Sebastian, London Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and at Carnegie Hall.
Courtney Bryan, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, is “a pianist and composer of panoramic interests” (New York Times). She is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, and currently serves as composer-in-residence with Opera Philadelphia. Recent accolades include the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2018), Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition (2019–2020), United States Artists Fellowship (2020), and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship (2020–2021). She is the Albert and Linda Mintz Professor of Music at Newcomb College in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University.
Tazewell Thompson, librettist for Gathering Song, is an internationally acclaimed director for opera and theatre, an award-winning playwright, librettist, teacher and actor. His opera Blue with composer Jeanine Tesori won the 2020 MCANNA Award for Best New Opera in North America. The New York Times listed Blue as Best in Classical Music for 2019. He has more than 150 directing credits, including 30 world and American premieres, in major opera houses and theaters across the USA, France, Spain, Italy, Africa, Japan and Canada, including Glimmerglass, New York City Opera, Teatro Real, La Scala, L’Opera Bastille, Cape Town, Tokyo, Vancouver and San Francisco Opera.
Tickets: Tickets start at $15. Tickets for youth under 18 are free with the purchase of an adult ticket. To purchase tickets, visit NewHavenSymphony.org or call (203) 693-1486 Monday-Friday from 12-5pm.
This concert is sponsored by City of New Haven Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism; Frontier; and the New Haven Register.
Additional Guest Artists
Dr. Lisa Williamson, soprano, has forged a distinct career performing a wide range of repertoire with such companies as Washington National Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Portland Opera, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra, and the Orcestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. From 2005-2010 she was the vocal soloist with the United States Coast Guard Band, performing in over 200 concerts throughout the U.S. and Japan. She was a member of the inaugural class of the Future of Music Faculty Fellowship at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, is a 2024 Teaching Intern with the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and is Assistant Professor of Voice at Ithaca College.
Mezzo-soprano Annie Rosen‘s performances have been acclaimed as “fearless,” “intensely present,” and “soul-crushingly vulnerable.” Recent seasons included performances as Wellgunde in Der Ring des Nibelungen with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Ankhesenpaaten in Akhnaten and Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera; and solo recitals of 21st-century Yiddish and Japanese music in New York and Minneapolis. Rosen is a 2022 Grammy Award-winner for Akhnaten. She holds additional awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Gerda Lissner Foundation, Santa Fe Opera, Central City Opera, and Connecticut Opera Guild. She is a recipient of the Shoshana Foundation’s Richard F. Gold Career Grant and the Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts from Yale College. A New Haven native, Rosen earned degrees in musicology and performance from Yale University and Mannes College.
Armenian-American tenor Chad Kranak, praised for his “lyrical eloquence and attractive lyric sound” by Opera News, is known for the musicality and vulnerability he brings to the stage. He is a lirico spinto tenor who has sung such leading roles as Cavaradossi (Tosca), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Don Jose (Carmen), Rinuccio (Gianni Schicchi), and Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos). Equally comfortable on the concert stage, Chad has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The Heritage Chorale of New Haven is a not-for-profit choral organization that seeks to preserve music of the African American liturgical tradition through presentation with other musical forms from classical to contemporary. Directed by Jonathan Berryman, HCNH has performed in concert with Yale University musical groups, with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and with the New Haven Chorale, among others.
The New Haven Chorale is an auditioned, volunteer chorus devoted to serving the Greater New Haven community through outstanding choral music. With performances described as “electrifying” and “deeply moving,” they are as committed to supporting other non-profits, creating educational initiatives, commissioning new music, and showcasing Connecticut composers. A devotion to artistic excellence, nurturing local musicians, and sustaining community has kept the Chorale unique and dynamic for over 70 years.
The Yale Glee Club is Yale’s principal undergraduate mixed chorus and oldest musical organization, having just concluded its 163rd season. In recent seasons, the Glee Club’s performances have received rave reviews in the national press, from The New York Times (“One of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous…an exciting, beautifully sung concert at Carnegie Hall”) to The Washington Post (“Under the direction of Jeffrey Douma, the sopranos – indeed, all the voices – sang as one voice, with flawless intonation…their treacherous semitones and contrapuntal subtleties became otherworldly, transcendent even”). Their upcoming season will include domestic and international concert tours, joint concerts with the Harvard and Princeton choruses, collaborations with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Yale Symphony Orchestra, and Yale Philharmonia.
