NIGHTLIGHT: THE LITTLE ORCHESTRA SOCIETY PRESENTS “MAKING A JOYFUL SOUND” A HOLIDAY CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF MAESTRO DINO ANAGNOST, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011, 5:30PM, CATHEDRAL OF THE HOLY TRINITY THE LITTLE ORCHESTRA SOCIETY, WITH GUEST CONDUCTOR CONSTANTINE KITSOPOULOS, SOPRANO SOLOISTS ANGELA MEADE AND INDRA THOMAS AND THE ORPHEON CHORALE, WILL PERFORM A SELECTION OF HOLIDAY MUSIC A BENEFIT DINNER AT THE METROPOLITAN CLUB WILL FOLLOW THE PERFORMANCE
On Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 5:30 p.m., The Little Orchestra Society, under the direction of guest conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, will present “Making a Joyful Sound,” a holiday celebration honoring the life and legacy of the late Maestro Dino Anagnost, at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (319 E. 74th Street). In a Byzantine-domed, candlelit setting filled with exquisite mosaics and stained glass, the Orchestra, with internationally renowned soprano soloists Angela Meade and Indra Thomas, and The Orpheon Chorale, will perform the “Christmas Concerto” by Corelli, “L’adorazione dei Magi” from Trittico Botticelliano by Respighi, Fantasia on Greensleeves by Vaughan Williams, and Maestro Anagnost’s special arrangement of Christmas music in the rich Byzantine tradition. In a joyous finale, the audience will be invited to join the Orchestra, soloists and chorus in singing beloved carols. You'll remember this summer we were pleased to cover their last event:
Cheyne Beys we were sorry to miss you! (Cheyne was in Peachy's MPS class...)
Maestro Anagnost’s dedication to, and personal affection for, classical music and audiences of all ages has led generations of New Yorkers into the world of music. The concert and Benefit Dinner at the Metropolitan Club (One East 60th Street) following, will support The Dino Anagnost Fund for Programming. Maestro Anagnost was The Little Orchestra Society’s Music Director for 32 years.
Expected Attendees and Affiliations:
Lawrence R. Bailey Jr., Esq. – Attorney
Cheyne and Michael Beys – Son of Froso Beys
Froso Beys – VP Corcoran / real estate
Holly Peterson Breeden – LOS Board and philanthropist
Richard Breeden – Former Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, hedge fund manager, and corporate chairman.
Professor and Mrs. Lambros Comitas – Gardner Cowles Professor of Anthropology and Education / Columbia University / Teachers College
Judith and Richard Conk – Arts Educator
Janet and Thomas Constance – Partner at Kramer Levin
William Craig III – Real estate / Sotheby’s
Donald R. Crawshaw, Esq. and Matthew Davis Hoffman – Sullivan & Cromwell
Drs. Eileen and Lawrence Cutler – LOS Board and physician
His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios – Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America
Davida and Alvin Deutsch – Partner at McLaughlin & Stern
Mr. & Mrs. Theodore Dimon – Parents of Jamie Dimon
Helene R. Flynn – LOS Board and philanthropist
Kara and Peter Georgiopoulos – Chairman, General Maritime
Senator Roy Goodman – American politician
Mary and Michael Jaharis – Founder, Vatera Healthcare Partners / philanthropist
Julie and Wilmot Kidd – Philanthropist
John Kordel Juliano – LOS Board
Kathryn Jaharis Ledes and Richard Ledes – President of Jaharis Family Foundation and American film maker
The Reverend Dr. Frank Marangos – Cathedral Dean & Presvytera Haidee Marangos
Carol and Daniel Marcus – LOS Board, retired ophthalmologist and arts advocate
Angela Meade – Soprano
Spiros and Antonia Milonas – Greek shipping tycoon and socialite
Brigid and William Ohlemeyer – Partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner
MacRae Parker – Senior Vice President /Managing Director, Brown Harris Stevens
Louise and Leonard Riggio – Chairman of Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Carol and Charles Schaefer – LOS Board / psychotherapist / philanthropist / NY Philharmonic Board member and Entrepreneur
Katerina and Robert Shaw – President of Navios Maritime Holdings, Inc.
Linda and John Tavlarios – Director, President and Chief Executive Officer, General Maritime Corporation
Indra Thomas – Soprano
Merryl Snow Zegar and Charles Zegar – Co-founder of financial information and media giant Bloomberg LP
Complete Program (subject to change):
Traditional Greek, Arr. Anagnost - Byzantine Chant Suite (Chorus and Orchestra)
Constantine Kitsopoulos - Shepherd’s Meditation (Chorus and Orchestra)
Arcangelo Corelli - Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8 “Christmas Concerto” (Orchestra)
Charles Gounod - O Divine Redeemer (Indra Thomas, soprano, Orchestra)
Gustav Holst - Christmas Day (Chorus and Orchestra)
Ottorino Respighi – “L’adorazione dei Magi”: Andante lento from Trittico Botticelliano (Orchestra)
Felix Mendelssohn – “Hear Ye Israel” from Elijah (Angela Meade, soprano, Orchestra)
Traditional Greek, Arr. Anagnost – Kalanta (Orchestra)
Hector Berlioz - Méditation Religieuse (Chorus and Orchestra)
Arr. Kitsopolous - It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (Angela Meade, soprano, Orchestra)
Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on Greensleeves (Orchestra)
Adolphe Adam, Arr. J. Saylor - O Holy Night (Indra Thomas, soprano, Chorus and Orchestra)
William Craig, Arr. Anagnost - The Old Carol (Chorus and Orchestra)
Constantine Kitsopoulos - Christmas Carol Suite (Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra with Audience Participation)
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
About Dino Anagnost
Dino Anagnost, who passed away in March of this year, served as the Music Director of The Little Orchestra Society for the last 32 years, one of the longest such tenures in New York City history, and had conducted the Orchestra in over l,000 public concerts. Dr. Anagnost created Sound Discoveries®, a concert series dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, and presented numerous American and New York premieres of major classical composers. In l990, Dino Anagnost conceived a festival based on the musical genius of Antonio Vivaldi. Vivaldi’s Venice, still thriving 21 years later, presents the composer and his contemporaries’ works in the dazzling style of the 18th century with entertaining commentary on the music and its milieu. Committed to introducing live performances of classical music to young audiences, Dr. Anagnost created Lolli-Pops™, New York’s most popular concert series for children ages 3 to 5, and the Peabody Award-winning Happy Concerts for Young People series at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, through which he has introduced the excitement of classical music to more than one million New York Metropolitan Area young people. Dino Anagnost and the Orchestra were nominated for a Grammy, and for his service to Italian Music in the United States, Dr. Anagnost was conferred the honor of Commendatore in the Order of Merit by the Italian government.
About Constantine Kitsopoulos
Constantine Kitsopoulos has made a name for himself as a conductor whose musical experiences comfortably span the worlds of opera and symphony, where he conducts in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Royal Albert Hall, and musical theater, where he can be found leading orchestras on Broadway. Mr. Kitsopoulos is in his sixth year as music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra and continues as General Director of Chatham Opera, which he founded in 2005.
Mr. Kitsopoulos kicked off his 2011/12 season with a Philadelphia Orchestra debut at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and a summer tour of Dream with Me with young singing sensation Jackie Evancho at the Ravinia and Sun Valley festivals, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony and at the Omaha Holland Performing Arts Center. In addition, he makes appearances with the New Jersey and Napa Valley symphonies and returns to Indiana University where he conducts Bolcom’s A View From the Bridge and Baldwin-Wallace College where he conducts Don Giovanni.
Highlights of the 2010/11 season included debuts with the Dallas, North Carolina, Charlotte and Tucson symphonies and a reengagement with the Calgary Philharmonic, among others. In recent seasons, Mr. Kitsopoulos made debuts with the Tokyo Philharmonic in Japan and at the Festival of the Arts Boca with the Russian National Orchestra. He has also led the Baltimore, Colorado, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Pittsburgh and San Francisco symphony orchestras, as well as the Blossom Festival Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra and New York Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
In addition to his orchestral and classical commitments, Mr. Kitsopoulos is much in demand as a theatre conductor, both on Broadway and nationwide. His first recording – Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème – was released by Dreamworks. His recording of Happy End, the only English language recording of the work, was released by Ghostlight. The original Broadway cast album of A Catered Affair was released by P.S. Classics.
About Angela Meade
Soprano Angela Meade is the winner of the 2011 Richard Tucker Award. Less than four years after her professional debut, she has become recognized as one of the outstanding vocalists of her generation. The New York Times said of Ms. Meade, “Norma counsels peace in ‘Casta Diva,’ and Ms. Meade sang it beautifully, filling the long-spun lines with rich, unforced sound, shaping the phrases with bittersweet poignancy, gracing the melody with tasteful embellishments and lifting her voice to majestic highs.” Angela Meade excels in the most demanding heroines of the nineteenth century bel canto repertoire as well as in the operas of Verdi and Mozart.
Angela Meade joined an elite group of history’s singers when she made her professional operatic debut on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera as Verdi’s Elvira in Ernani, substituting for an ill colleague in 2008. Ronald Blum of the Associated Press wrote of the debut, “She showed a vibrant voice with nice color and an assured technique and sang like an old pro from start to finish.” She had previously sung on the Met stage as one of the winners of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a process that is documented in the film, “The Audition,” recently released on DVD by Decca. The New York Times noted Angela Meade as “an impressive soprano who powered out a ‘Casta diva’ from Bellini’s Norma that left everyone breathless.”
In the 2011/12 season, Angela Meade made an impressive return to the Metropolitan Opera in the title role of David McVicar’s new production of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, conducted by Marco Armiliato, where the Associated Press called her “a true bel canto expert.” She will also return to the Metropolitan Opera to the role of her professional debut in a reprise of Verdi’s Ernani as Elvira, opposite Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ferruccio Furlanetto, also conducted by Marco Armiliato. This production will be seen live in HD around the world. Ms. Meade will make her debut with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, singing Lucrezia in a concert version of Verdi’s I Due Foscari opposite Ramón Vargas and Leo Nucci. She will also make her Canadian debut with the Orchestre Métropolitain, singing the Zemlinsky “Lyric Symphony,” conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
A busy 2010/11 season for Angela Meade included her European operatic debut at the Wexford Festival in the title role of Mercadante’s rarely-seen Virginia. She also returned to the Metropolitan Opera to cover the title role in Rossini’s Armida. In the concert world, Angela Meade made her debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony in Verdi’s Requiem conducted by Manfred Honeck; she also sang this same work for debuts with the Houston Symphony under Thomas Dausgaard and at the Palm Beach Opera and the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop. Ms. Meade also performed Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang” Symphony at the San Antonio Symphony under Sebastian Lang-Lessing and her first performances of Donna Anna in a concert version of Don Giovanni with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra under Roberto Abbado. Other highlights included the Dvořák Stabat Mater with the New York Choral Society at Carnegie Hall, the Brahms Requiem with the Choralis Foundation at Strathmore Hall, and recitals with the Sarasota Artists Series where she collaborated with Danielle Orlando.
In the spring and summer of 2011, Angela Meade opened the Tanglewood Festival, performing the title role in the first act of Bellini’s Norma, conducted by Charles Dutoit. She was featured in the Metropolitan Opera Parks concerts in New York City and traveled to Oper Kiel to be featured in their Festival concerts. She performed Mahler’s Second Symphony under Gerard Schwarz at the Seattle Symphony, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä and Verdi’s Requiem at the Baltimore Symphony, conducted by Marin Alsop.
About Indra Thomas
Of Indra Thomas’ performance as Imogene in Il Pirata at the Caramoor Festival, the New York Times wrote: “The mad scene was a triumph, especially its reflective first half in which Ms. Thomas’ affinity for long-spun, slow melodic phrases was impressive. The audience awarded her a tremendous ovation.” During the summer of 2010, Ms. Thomas, who is considered one of the foremost Aidas in the world today, sang the title role at the Bregenz Festival in Austria.
In the 2010/11 season, she performed in a Gala Concert for the Artist Series of Sarasota; sing Aida at the Palau De Les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain, the Israeli Opera, and the Chorégies d’Orange; and make her New York recital debut in Weill Recital Hall.
Additional performances during this season are the Verdi Requiem with the Flint Symphony and a performance of Chausson’s Poème de L’amour et la Mer with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia. During the summer of 2009, Ms. Thomas performed Aida in a new production at the Bregenz Festival, which was followed by Sir Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.
The 2009/10 season brought performances of the Verdi Requiem in a tour of four cities in Spain with the Euskadi Orchestra under the direction of Andres Orozco Estrada, a special holiday concert with The Little Orchestra Society of New York, Britten’s War Requiem with the Orchestre de Paris, the Verdi Requiem with the Vermont Symphony, and Aida at the Avignon Music Festival and the Bregenz Festival.
Additional performances of note include: Il Trovatore with Austin Lyric Opera; Villa-Lobos’ La Forêt Amazonian (recorded by Radio France); Spanish debut in the Verdi Requiem under the direction of Jesus Lopez-Cobos in a gala performance that was televised throughout Spain; Boston Symphony debut in Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with Sir Colin Davis conducting; debut with the Moscow Virtuosi in Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder; Vier letzte Lieder with the Utah Symphony under the direction of Keith Lockhart; the Verdi Requiem with the Portland Symphony; Aida in a new production for Michigan Opera Theatre, and at the Palm Beach Opera; her New York Philharmonic debut in the Porgy and Bess Suite in a gala New Year’s Eve concert conducted by Lorin Maazel, nationally televised on Live from Lincoln Center (2003 Emmy nomination); Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Philadelphia Orchestra; Liù in Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera; her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Aida; Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Boston Philharmonic; Leonora in Il Trovatore with Michigan Opera Theatre; Imogene in Il Pirata and Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello at the Caramoor Festival; Elisabeth in Don Carlos with Boston Lyric Opera and Minnesota Opera; Aida with the Atlanta Opera; and her French debut at the Colmar Festival, where she performed Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’été conducted by Vladimir Spivakov.
Ms. Thomas made her professional debut in the Verdi Requiem in Carnegie Hall with the New York Choral Society, and has recorded a CD for National Public Radio which includes lieder by Strauss, Duparc, John Duke, and spirituals, and is featured on A Night at the Opera on Naxos. While in her teens, she sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” in the funeral scene of the Academy Award-winning film Driving Miss Daisy.
About The Little Orchestra Society
The Little Orchestra Society, now in its 64th season, performed its inaugural concert at The Town Hall on October 20, 1947, and has since been devoted to performing innovative concerts of classical music for both adults and children. The Orchestra performs dynamic repertoire using multiple art forms with a variety of artists to create meaningful musical experiences for today’s audiences.
Throughout its history, the Orchestra has given many important premieres and launched the careers of major musical talents in its concert programming for adult audiences. Under the direction of Dino Anagnost from 1979-2011, The LOS has been deeply committed to music education and public service. In addition to its concert performances, its music education and community engagement programs educate and entertain New York Metropolitan Area children, their families and senior citizens through the Musical Connections, Live In Concert! and Project 65Plus programs.
Musical Connections: The School Partnership Program, a year-long music education program, teaches students the basic elements of music by engaging them in the process of composing their own works. Live In Concert! seeks to instill a lasting love of music in children and their families and expand audiences for classical music. New York City public school students and children from New York City-funded daycare centers and social service agencies attend The Little Orchestra Society’s dress rehearsals and concerts without charge. Project 65Plus recognizes the importance of life-long learning and provides senior New Yorkers with free admission to the Orchestra’s concerts. The LOS also works to serve grandparents who are caregivers. More than 15,000 people participate in LOS music education and public service programs each year.
The Orchestra’s concert series includes the Peabody Award-winning Happy Concerts for Young People for children ages 6-12, the Lolli-Pops™ for children ages 3-5, and the concerts for adults, which have included Vivaldi’s Venice, Cathedral Concerts – Great Music Under a Byzantine Dome® and Sound Discoveries®. For more information, please visit littleorchestra.org or call 212-971-9500.
