Meredith Elaine Baker

Hearty greetings as the Long Island Choral Society celebrates its EIGHTIETH YEAR!

As you peruse our prospectus, I hope that you will think of many friends and relatives that you can invite to join you in attending the various concerts. There really is something for everyone in the programming of our 80th!

Requiems may seem peculiar vehicles for celebration, however, two of the most magnificent are featured for November and April. The German Requiem that Brahms created does not follow the liturgical model used for centuries. His is a personal expression of faith; a collection of individual masterworks on biblical portions, chosen and bound together by the composer. Brahms creates a new genre in his ultimate Protestant example of a Requiem. Verdi uses the Roman liturgy in his operatic idiom to mold a beautiful Bel Canto utterance of the standard texts. One cannot participate in either performance without profound spiritual recognition of grief and joy. As a singer or orchestra member, or as the audience, both of these Requiems are exquisite jewels that LICS is proud to share. We will diverge from Requiems at the May concert, and present some new and old choral works – one being the Eric Whitacre Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine (libretto by Charles Anthony Silvestri).

Members of the Long Island Choral Society are singers who join together for weekly rehearsals during the “Academic Year” to study and refine the choral art. Individual reading skills and vocal talents of varied levels are combined to produce each concert. We are delighted that many singers choose to be LICS members for numerous years. We also welcome new members with open arms! If you know someone who wants to sing, please let them know that we hold auditions four times during the year as we begin each new concert preparation period. It is best to join in September, but if we have space in a section, we accept singers in November, January, and April.

Our Artist-in-Residence is a professional musician who is invited to perform in the first three concerts of each season. Often one of the singing soloists, we have featured a number of orchestra members in the past – oboe, violin, cello, trumpet, and organ most recently. This year we are delighted to announce Donald Larsen, our superb timpanist, as our Artist-in-Residence. It is wonderful that we could fit our schedules together so that Don will be playing with us all year.

Now it is time for you to check your calendars, and mark our concert dates in pen! Note that our subscription concerts are usually Sunday afternoons, but due to the Cathedral schedule, we will celebrate our Messiah performance on a gala Friday evening. We hope this will make your Christmas observation even more special – and that many families will plan their annual gatherings for that performance.

Your generosity is one of the reasons for our continued success. Please consider sponsoring LICS in any way possible – buy an ad in our programs, be an Orchestra Angel, or just choose a donation level and help us to continue to serve our community through music! The Long Island Choral Society is proud of its Eighty Year tradition – with your help, we’ll be singing for eighty more!

Harmoniously,