Death of Classical and The Green-Wood Cemetery have announced season three of their acclaimed concert series, The Angel’s Share. The series will offer seven in-person events in the Cemetery and Catacombs, and seven filmed programs broadcast on The WNET Group’s ALL ARTS TV channel and streaming on allarts.org and the ALL ARTS app.
The season opens 3-5 June with Hymn to the City, a sprawling, immersive event in partnership with the New York Philharmonic that pays tribute to New York’s singular spirit of resilience and renewal after a year of collective trauma, loss and mourning.
Next up on 25 June, violinist Gil Shaham is joined by five players from the Brooklyn-born orchestra The Knights for an outdoor performance of their pandemic-proof ‘Pocket Beethoven’ violin concerto arrangement.
Pianist Min Kwon will play two programs from her America/Beautiful project on 8 & 9 July, in which she commissioned 70+ of America’s top composers to each write a variation on ‘America the Beautiful’, combining to offer a sonic portrait of the US in all of its sprawling complexity.
On 4, 6, & 7 August, the PUBLIQuartet perform music from their album Freedom and Faith, which celebrates women composers through the ages and explores ideas of spirituality, resilience, and inspiration. Composers include Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Jessie Montgomery, Hildegard von Bingen and original MIND THE GAP compositions by PUBLIQuartet.
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein will give a one-of-a-kind performance on 15-17 September of An American Mosaic, a new piece written for her by Richard Danielpour where each movement commemorates a different segment of the American population that’s been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. For each performance, Dinnerstein will guide audiences across the Cemetery, pausing periodically to perform on Yamaha pianos placed along the route. She will also be joined by radio personality Robin Quivers to perform Joseph Phillips’ ‘Never Has Been Yet’.
Ulysses Quartet will perform Death and Shadows in the Catacombs on 6-8 October, a program that pairs Schubert’s Death and the Maiden string quartet with Osvaldo Golijov’s otherworldly Tenebrae, a piece which contrasts the terrible violence he saw while visiting Israel with the cosmic wonder of his son’s first trip to a planetarium.
The season closes 21-23 October with a large-scale, outdoor, candlelit performance of the Fauré Requiem by Cantori New York, conducted by Mark Shapiro. Fauré’s deeply moving meditation on grief moves from the suffering of death to the hope of eternal peace in paradise, offering an opportunity to mourn the terrible toll of the pandemic while reminding us that there is always light in the darkness.
In addition to the in-person performances, a filmed series entitled From the Catacombs will be broadcast later this year on The WNET Group’s ALL ARTS TV channel in the New York metro area, and will stream nationally on allarts.org and the ALL ARTS app. The series includes performances in the Catacombs by Jennifer Koh, Simone Dinnerstein, Conrad Tao, Conor Hanick, Helga Davis & Jeffrey Zeigler, Ulysses Quartet and the Harlem Chamber Players Quartet.
Andrew Ousley, Death of Classical’s Founder and Artistic Director, said of the new season: ‘Over the past year, we have been through a trial together. A seemingly endless barrage of suffering, fear, anger and sorrow. But now that we see light at the end of this long, dark tunnel, it’s vital that we pause to process and reflect on what we’ve experienced. The music in these programs offers an opportunity both to mourn and to move forward, to grieve for all that is lost, but also to honor the moments of heroism and selflessness, the fearlessness of our first responders, the quiet humanity of one neighbor helping another in a time of need. After everything, more now than ever, I have hope for the future’.
Harry Weil, Director of Public Programs at Green-Wood added: ‘This season reflects the complexity of what it means to create, produce and perform after the harrowing experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both the music and the setting of the Cemetery echo the grief felt for those we have lost and the uncertainty of what’s to come, while radiating the very real hope of renewal and rebirth. As a site dedicated to commemorating and celebrating the departed, we are proud to be partnering with Death of Classical for another year of imaginative and thought-provoking performances.
Rick Perdian
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