St. Andrew choir to perform at Carnegie Hall

Members of St. Andrew Lutheran Church’s Canticle Choir will perform at Carnegie Hall on Memorial Day. 

“There’s definitely something incredibly special about walking on the stage of Carnegie Hall,” said Larry Bach, the choir’s director. “The history, mixed with the acoustics: there’s hardly anyone in the Western world that hasn’t heard of Carnegie Hall.”

The Memorial Day concert will mark Bach’s fifth time conducting at Carnegie Hall, the storied New York City venue that opened in 1891. Over the years, it has hosted performers such as composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (“The Nutcracker”), jazz singer Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, the Beatles and more.

Bach’s previous appearances at the concert hall included two music festivals and two performances with the North Central University Chorale, a choir from the Minneapolis college where he served as professor.

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Choir to premiere ‘Five Psalms’

The May 26 concert will feature the work of living composer Michael John Trotta.

“I have more or less championed a lot of his music, and he specifically asked for me to be one of the conductors in this festival of his music,” Bach said. 

Trotta’s works for choral voices in four, five or six parts often involve musical compositions that feature texts from the Christian Bible. After first encountering Trotta’s “Seven Last Words,” Bach said, “I liked his writing so much we commissioned him to do a piece, ‘Te Deum,’ for my final concert at North Central University.”

St. Andrew was part of the commission for Trotta’s “Requiem,” which meant the Eden Prairie church was one of the first places in the world to perform the work. Trotta has composed a new piece, “Five Psalms,” which the Canticle Choir will sing in its world premiere at the Memorial Day concert. Under Bach’s direction, the choir will also perform “A Light Shines in the Darkness,” another Trotta composition. 

All of these major works are written for both choir and orchestra, Bach said. The New England Symphonic Ensemble, the house orchestra for concert producer MidAmerica Productions, will accompany St. Andrew’s Canticle Choir on Memorial Day, as well as performing with other participating choirs from around the U.S.

In addition to conducting the St. Andrew singers, Bach will also be directing singers from the Twin Cities community choir Chrismon Chorale. That choir, along with North Central University Chorale and Alumni, and A Subtle Note from Woodbury, New Jersey, will join the featured St. Andrew Canticle Choir for its portion of the program.

Approximately 25 singers from St. Andrew will be making the trip to New York for the performance, Bach said.

“They love the music,” he said. “We’ve been doing some of the pieces as anthems in our Sunday morning services, but not, obviously, with full orchestra. So they know how the pieces go, but they can’t wait to hear it with the full orchestra.”

The Canticle Choir singers will have seven hours of rehearsal time in New York before the performance, most of it in a space outside Carnegie Hall.

When it comes to dress rehearsal at the famous venue, however, Bach said that, “Every group that I’ve ever conducted, the first couple of minutes of the dress rehearsal really don’t go that well because everybody’s so in awe of just being there. 

“They’re just awed by it, really, to walk on the stage, to have that opportunity. So I’m thrilled for the singers here at St. Andrew to have that opportunity.”

Tickets are available for the 1 p.m. May 26 concert at a cost of $25, plus a $4 fee. Order through the Carnegie Hall website or by calling 212-247-7800.