Vista Philharmonic Orchestra: Ode To Joy

Margaret Bonds
(1913-1972)
Montgomery Variations

I: The Decision
II: Prayer Meeting
III: March
IV: Dawn in Dixie
V: One Sunday in the South
VI: Lament
VII: Benediction

Intermission

Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125

Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
Molto vivace
Adagio molto e cantabile
Finale

Brianna J. Robinson, soprano
Britt Brown, alto
Albert Lee, tenor
Kevin Deas, bass
The Worcester Chorus, Chris Shepard, Conductor

Guest Artists

Brianna J. Robinson
Soprano Brianna J. Robinson, whom The Boston Globe proclaimed as, “…a radiant voice and presence” is a native of Ravenna, Ohio. She is a former Jane and Steven Akin Emerging Artist with Boston Lyric Opera where she covered and performed roles such as Lucy in Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers, Mimi (cover) in Puccini’s La Boheme, Lena in Ana Solokovic’s Svabda and covered several roles in Paul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale. She recently stepped on stage as Julie in Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’ 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, Omar. 

 In the 2023-2024 season, Ms. Robinson makes her Carnegie Hall debut with The Cecilia Chorus of NY in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona nobis pacem. She also returned to Boston Lyric Opera as Leontine in Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George’s The Anonymous Lover.  Last season, she made multiple concert debuts with several orchestras, including the Akron Symphony Orchestra, Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra/New World Chorale, and the Handel and Haydn Society in the powerful performances of ‘Crossing the Deep’. Ms. Robinson was named a finalist in the Benjamin Matthews Vocal Competition with Opera Ebony,  awarded first prize at the 6th Getting to Carnegie Competition and recently was selected as a District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. She has participated in international programs including the Berlin Opera Academy and Opernfest Prague. She made her international debut in Ruse, Bulgaria in 2021 creating the role of Ophelia in the world premiere of Joseph Summer’s Hamlet. 

Ms. Robinson is a proud graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Eastman School of Music.

Britt Brown
Versatile mezzo-soprano Britt Brown is a sought-after interpreter of a wide variety of repertoire throughout New England and the Midwest. Recent seasons have seen her premiering the role of Lavinia in Opera America’s Discovery Grant-winning Dark Exhalation by composer Amber Vistein, alto soloist in the Liszt transcription of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA, and alto soloist with UW La Crosse in their recent performance of Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. She is currently growing her experience in the historical performance space, with recent recitals as a soloist in BWV 117, 156, 159, 165, 196, and 230 with period instrument ensemble Just Bach. Her performances of new works include the world premiere of Vores’s Chrononhotonthologos, the Boston premieres of Jonathan Bailey Holland’s Naomi in the Living Room, Stefan Weisman’s The Scarlet Ibis, and the NYC premiere of Epstein’s Rumpelstiltskin, now on Parma Recordings. Britt is also an accomplished orchestral soloist, performing works including Berio’s Folk Songs, Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony, Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer and his Symphony No. 3, Hendrick’s Cain (premiere), and a recent evening of arias with Symphony by the Sea.

Britt received her Bachelor of Music from Stetson University and holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music. She is based in Madison with her husband Ryne, daughter Rosalind, and their small zoo of rescue animals.

Dr. Albert Lee
Dr. Albert Lee is a tenor who has crafted a broad career as a classical vocalist in opera, oratorio, recital, and liturgical music. Lee’s performances have been described as “vocally sumptuous,” “musically distinctive” and even “acrobatically agile.” Having appeared with Opera Theater of Saint Louis, Palm Beach Opera, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, the Collegiate Chorale of New York City, Caramoor International Music Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival, Lee’s operatic and oratorio roles include Don Ramiro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Almaviva in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore and Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte and the tenor solos in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Handel’s Judas Maccabeus, and the Rossini Stabat Mater. He is also a featured soloist on a recording of works by composer George Walker on Albany Records singing the Pulitzer Prize winning work Lilacs for tenor and orchestra with Sinfonia di Camera.

Lee has appeared as tenor soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the National Chorale, joined the British-based classical crossover group Vox Fortura in domestic and international performances, and made appearances with the London Symphony as tenor soloist in Adolphus Hailstork’s I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes and Washington D.C,’s InSeries singing the title role in R. Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses. Having completed the Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance at the University of Connecticut, the Master of Music at The Juilliard School, and the Doctor of Music degree at Florida State University, he is Associate Professor of Music and the inaugural Director of Equity, Belonging, and Student Life at the Yale University School of Music.

Kevin Deas
Kevin Deas has gained international renown as one of America’s leading bass-baritones. He is perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title role in Porgy and Bess, having performed it with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, as well as the most illustrious orchestras on the North American continent, and at the Ravinia, Vail and Saratoga festivals.  

Kevin Deas past season highlights includes performances of Haydn’s The Creation with the Minnesota Orchestra,  Mozart’s Requiem with the Toronto Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Orchestra Iowa, and National Philharmonic & Chorale, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Florida Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the New York Philharmonic, National Cathedral, Saint-Saens’ Henry VII with Odyssey Opera of Boston, Verdi’s Requiem with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria and Rhode Island Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Pacific Symphony and Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, and William Walton’s Façade at the Virginia Arts Festival.  He has performed selections from Gershwin with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, selections from the musicals Les Miserables, Show Boat, and Ragtime with Providence Singers, in “The Spiritual in White America,” a presentation of black spirituals transformed for the white concert stage by Harry Burleigh and Nathaniel Dett, at the Phillips Collection, and a Christmas concert with the Portland Symphony. 

A strong proponent of contemporary music, Kevin Deas was heard at Italy’s Spoleto Festival in a new production of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors in honor of the composer’s eighty-fifth birthday, recorded on video for international release. He also performed the world premieres of Derek Bermel’s The Good Life with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Hannibal Lokumbe’s Dear Mrs. Parks with the Detroit Symphony. His twenty-year collaboration with the late jazz legend Dave Brubeck has taken him to Salzburg, Vienna and Moscow in performances of To Hope! He performed Brubeck’s Gates of Justice in a gala performance in New York.  

THE WORCESTER CHORUS OF MUSIC WORCESTER
Chris Shepard, director | Mark Mummert, assistant director

SOPRANO
Jennifer Arnieri
Elizabeth Auld
Susanne Blatt
Lira Cady
Kay Cahn
Elizabeth Clements
Caroline Duffy
Ellen Duffy Friend
Tracey Field
Roxanne Florence
Lois Lada Foley
Beth Gale
Nancy Hale
*Marie Harrington
Xuemei Jiang
Lynne Johnson
Kate Kasdorf
*Laura Kaushansky
Elizabeth Kelleyz
Abigail Kelley-Lanser
Polly Kimmitt
Angela Knapton
Gretchen Kossack
Debi Lang
Paula Leary
Yael London
Dawn McCabe
Tamara Modig
Nadine Nahabedian
Carol Pelletier
Catherine Perch
Stephanie Perkins
Allison Rainville
Margery Reiter
Rebecca Scheurer
Brigitte Servatius
Janice Seymour
Anitra Smith
Virginia Vaughan
Jennifer Wilson
Margaret Wong
Paula Wyble

ALTO
Barbara Ball
MaryAnne Barnicle
Pamela Barrett
Jane Beckwith
Sarah Bodah
Patsy Cecil
Susan d’Entremont
Sarah Davis
Helen Dexter
Amanda Dings Vollum
Phyllis Estus
Ann Flatt
Kathleen Gagne
Deborah Hill
Kim Kearns
*Betsy Koss
Mary Levesque
Pamela Mahoney
Anne Mallek
Cynthia Maybeck
Paula Miner
Sue Moore
Judith Nagata
Bernadette Nelson
Ariana Norgren
Susan Phyfe
Lori Puccetti
Sara Regan
Rebecca Hanson Richardson
Marjorie Ropp
Deborah Simeone
Susan Stafford
Paula Tebeau
Kate Tower-Ludwig

TENOR
Don Bigwood
Patrick Bobkowski
Eric Brose
James Cooper
Dan Dougherty
Donnell Forbes
Bruce Foss
Nancy Hagberg
Murray Kohn
*Elizabeth Martin
Terence McGinty
Barry Mosher
Richard Rudman
Irving Spenadel
Ben Stein

BASS
Stephan Barnicle
Les Blatt
Timothy Cashmore
Mark d’Entremont
Paul Dexter
Thomas Erwin
Alvin Gomez
Aidan Griffith
Jim Kasdorf
Jack Kenney
Paul LaBelle
William Major
Daniel Miller
Tim Olevsky
Alan Peppel
Craig Phyfe
Kenneth Prince
Sam Reddoch
Herman J. Servatius
Herman E. Servatius
Tony Smith
Larry Smith
*Brian Story

* INDICATES SECTION LEADER

THE WORCESTER CHORUS
From Classic to Contemporary since 1858

The Worcester Chorus of Music Worcester has the unique distinction of being one of the most outstanding on-going choral groups in the United States. Founded in 1858 to sing at the first annual Worcester Music Festival in the newly-built Mechanics Hall, the 100-member group includes both amateur and professional singers from Worcester County, northern Connecticut and the Boston area. Its repertoire includes not only choral masterpieces, but also contemporary literature, arrangements of American folk songs, classics from musical theater and commissioned works. Each year the Chorus performs with orchestras and soloists in Mechanics Hall as part of Music Worcester’s main season, including an annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. Beginning in the 2024-2025 Music Worcester season and continuing through March 21, 2035, the Worcester Chorus will be key participants in THE COMPLETE BACH project. The Worcester Chorus has also made guest appearances throughout the Northeast and overseas.

The Worcester Chorus has appeared with the Hartford Symphony, the American Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Center, and the Prague Symphony at Carnegie Hall. The Chorus performed at the 1992 American Choral Directors Association Eastern Division Convention in Boston, and has appeared at the Worcester Music Festival with the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Rochester Philharmonic, and the symphonies of Boston, Baltimore, and Detroit. 

CHRIS SHEPARD serves as the Music Director of The Worcester Chorus of Music Worcester, as well as the Artistic Director of the Connecticut Choral Artists (CONCORA), the state’s oldest professional choir. In May 2024, Chris launched THE COMPLETE BACH, a 132-concert project to present live performances of all of J.S. Bach’s works for the first time ever in America under the auspices of Music Worcester.  

His musical interests hardly stop in the eighteenth century, however.  Chris has conducted much of the most prominent large scale choral-orchestral repertoire, including major works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Poulenc, and Britten; a career highlight was the 2022 performance by the Worcester and Masterwork Choruses of Verdi’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.  He has also performed many works by contemporary composers and has premiered works by such composers as Ricky Ian Gordon, Gwyneth Walker, Martin Sedek, Robert Convery, Anna K Jacobs, and Amy Bernon.  His choirs have collaborated with a number of orchestras, such as the Juilliard Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, in venues that include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall in New York, as well as the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.  Chris has prepared choirs for major international conductors, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Simone Young, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and William Boughton, as well as for Broadway legend Patti Lupone and Ray Davies of the Kinks.  For a decade, Chris was conductor of the Masterwork Chorus in New Jersey, with whom he performed Handel’s Messiah annually at Carnegie Hall; he also led the Dessoff Choir in New York City from 2010 to 2016.  Chris made his conducting debut with the New Haven Symphony in 2015.  

A pianist and keyboard continuist, Chris holds degrees from the Hartt School, the Yale School of Music (where he studied choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks) and the University of Sydney.  He researched the performance history of Bach’s B Minor Mass in New York City for his PhD in Musicology; his dissertation won the American Choral Directors Association’s 2012 Julius Herford Prize for outstanding doctoral thesis in choral music.

MARK MUMMERT  is Cantor at Trinity Lutheran Church, Worcester, MA and Assistant Director/Accompanist for The Worcester Chorus. He serves on the voice faculty at Hanover Conservatory. He was the 2015 Distinguished Visiting Cantor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and Director of Worship at Houston’s Christ the King Lutheran Church, the home of Bach Society Houston. He was the Seminary Musician at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (1990-2008). Mark is a composer of the first musical setting of Holy Communion in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006). As a professional singer, he has performed for the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, Worcester Chorus, Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, the Bach Choir Houston, Houston Chamber Choir, CONCORA, and St. John’s Schola Cantorum. He studies voice with Jane Shivick.  Artistic management for Mark is provided by Seven Eight Artists.