Symphony and Master Chorale perform Handel's Messiah at the Chester Fritz
The Greater Grand Forks Symphony and the Grand Forks Master Chorale join forces Dec. 16 and 17, along with singers from several area choirs in a performance of Handel’s "Messiah." Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday evening at the Chester Fritz Auditorium and Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Lincoln High School Auditorium in Thief River Falls. Tickets ($5-$18) are available from the Chester Fritz Auditorium (701-777-4090) and at Kezar’s Music in Thief River Falls.
In addition to the Symphony and Chorale, choirs from East Grand Forks Senior High School, Northland College and Sacred Heart High School will participate. In all, over two hundred voices will be joining symphony musicians to fill the auditorium with the sounds of Handel’s most popular oratorio.
Four soloists will be featured in the performance. Soprano Anne Christopherson has performed at Lincoln Center and the Colorado Lyric Theatre Festival and been a featured artist with the prestigious Academy of Art Song at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and with I Solisti di Lucca under the auspices of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Lucca, Italy. This summer, audiences enjoyed the “evil fun” of her “electric” performance as Mrs. Lovett in the Crimson Creek Collegiate Players’ production of Sweeney Todd. Christopherson is a member of the music faculty at UND.
Lyric mezzo-soprano, Holly Wrensch’s past credits include a variety of characters from the trouser roles of Cherubino, Hansel and Prince Orlofsky, to the ingénue roles of Nancy (Albert Herring), Valencienne (The Merry Widow) and Phoebe (The Yeoman of the Guard), to the more dramatic roles of Carmen and The Secretary (The Counsul). Recently, she received the Irma Cooper Award as a finalist in the National Association Teachers of Singing Artist Award competition in Minneapolis.
Tenor Terence Kelly is a frequent oratorio soloist who was a principal tenor at the Operafestival di Roma in the summer of 1995 and again in 2000. A prize winner at the Franz Schubert Institute for German Lieder, Dr. Kelly has coached with Elly Ameling, Jörg Demus, Hans Hotter, Gérard Souzay, and numerous other professional artists. He has been featured on Austrian National Radio, RKO radio in the USA, and Allegro con brio in Rome.
Bass James Ramlet returns to the area after performing last year with the GGFSO in Amahl and the Night Visitors. He came to national prominence in 1986, singing the American premiere of Aulis Sallinen’s The King Goes Forth to France at the Santa Fe Opera. Since then, he has performed more than 40 roles with Houston Grand Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, Washington Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Anchorage Opera and Chautauqua Opera, among others. His Lyric Opera of Chicago performance in Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra was telecast nationally on PBS’ “Great Performances”.
The performance will be conducted by new Symphony Conductor and Music Director, Maestro James Hannon. Additional Lincoln High School choristers will join the performance Sunday in the Symphony’s first visit to Thief River Falls in recent history.
-- Jennifer Tarlin, Executive Director, Greater Grand Forks Symphony, ggfso@und.edu, 7-3359 |