Sunday, Oct 31, 2010
Beethoven and Brahms
by Anne Sears
The Westminster Symphonic Choir traveled to New York and Philadelphia to participate in some high-profile concerts in October and November.
Friday, October 22, 80 members of the ensemble performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the KBS Symphony Orchestra conducted by Shinik Hahm at the United Nations. The concert was open to UN delegates and invited guests. It was videotaped for broadcast in Korea.
On Sunday, October 31 the Symphonic Choir performed Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) with the Dresden Staatskapelle conducted by Daniel Harding at Lincoln Center in New York. The concert is part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, which is focusing on music’s transcendent capacity to illuminate our larger interior universe, according to the Center’s vice president for programming. On Tuesday, November 2 the ensemble and orchestra will perform the same work at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.
This was the Westminster Symphonic Choir’s first performance with the Dresden Staatskapelle, which recently celebrated its 460th Jubilee and was voted one of the world's top ten orchestras by Gramophone magazine.