The Burnt Hills Oratorio Society (BHOS), under the direction of our Artistic Director, announces its 2017-18 season, The Gift of Life: Hear It. See It. Live It. Divided into three segments – Choral Masterpiece, Choral Cabaret, and Choral Theater – audiences will enjoy vastly diverse repertory from concert to concert.
Joseph Haydn’s The Creation fills the afternoon at 4:00 PM on Sunday, October 22, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Glenville. Haydn’s masterwork, a fundamental appeal for universal love and fellowship, will feature Alumni from the Opera Saratoga Young Artists Program: Emily Tweedy, Soprano, Spencer Viator, Tenor, and John Tibbetts, Baritone, with the virtuoso instrumentalists of The Oratorio Orchestra, Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, concertmaster.
On the weekend of February 10 and 11, 2018 at The Vista Restaurant in Clifton Park, A Grand Night for Singing, will be offered in a fully staged New York cabaret style dinner theater, a splendid setting for the immortal songs of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The occasions begin with a Chef’s Buffet followed by a review of dozens of hits by two of America’s favorite composers. These timeless songs showcase the full chorus, soloists from within the chorus, and guest artists.
Finally, on Friday June 15 at 7:30 PM, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, the season conclusion will be three distinctly different musical offerings: John Rutter’s Gift of Life, a six-movement choral celebration of the earth, of creation, and of life itself; Savitri, a one act chamber opera by Gustav Holst. Guest soloists for these dramas, drawn from the professional voices of the Auriel Camerata, will be Carla Fisk, soprano, as Savitri, Casey Gray, tenor, as Satyavan, and Siddharth Dubey, baritone, as Death.
The third work, by Benjamin Britten written in 1943, will be The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard. Scored for an all-male chorus and brought to life by Auriel Camerata soloists, the story tells of an unfaithful wife and her lover whom are discovered and murdered by the cheated husband. This concert will be presented in multi-media style, with staging and projected art work from local schools.