MUSIC OF PRAYER AND REVELATION!

      Join us this July for the eleventh annual Saratoga Choral Festival. Singers will meet for rehearsals over a three-week period in Saratoga Springs beginning Tuesday, July 5th, and will perform in a concert open to the public at the SPA LITTLE THEATER on Sunday, July 24th, at 3:00 p.m. This summer's concert will feature the moving Bloch Sacred Service for chorus and organ and The Golden Door, a work for chorus and orchestra by Ron Perera.

      The Sacred Service will feature baritone Robert Abelson (see bio below) and organist Ed Lawrence, minister of music at Williamstown’s First Congregational church and studio instructor of organ, harpsichord and piano at Williams College. In Bloch’s words, “this great Jewish oratorio far surpasses a Jewish Service…it has become a cosmic poem, a glorification of the Laws of the Universe.”  The work was the first large scale setting of the Jewish worship service by a mainstream composer. It conveys a grand and universal meaning of gratitude, hope, and compassion. Ronald Perera's seven-movement work, The Golden Door is based on oral histories of immigrants who entered the United States through Ellis Island. The work tells their inspiring and powerful stories from the time they decided to leave the Old Country until their arrival in New York Harbor. The work concludes with a moving setting of the concluding verse from the famous poem by Emma Lazarus that appears on the base of the Statue of Liberty. The work, as a whole, humanizes for the listener many experiences of the people who have come to this country seeking a greater quality of life.

      The Saratoga Choral Festival began in the summer of 2001. Previous seasons have featured the requiems by Fauré, Duruflé, and Mozart (repeated in October 2001 as a benefit for the Red Cross and victims of 9/11), Bach’s Magnificat (featuring members of the Philadelphia Orchestra), Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Rutter Gloria, Mozart’s Coronation Mass and a premiere of a new edition of Gretchaninov’s Liturgia Domestica in 2009. In August of 2004, the chorus finally realized its dream of performing with the Philadelphia orchestra in a critically acclaimed performance of the Mahler 3rd Symphony with the Harlem Boys Choir under the direction of Charles Dutoit at SPAC. By performing at the Little Theater located in the heart of SPA State Park, the Festival joins the list of illustrious performances presented there during the summer such as the Lake George Opera and the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival.

The Bloch Sacred Service is Cantor Robert Paul Abelson’s signature piece, having performed it numerous times over the years including a famed presentation at the Berkshire Choral Festival. He has been a member of the New York City Opera, the Seattle Opera Association, St.Paul Opera, and the Goldovsky Opera Theatre, and has appeared in concert with many orchestras, including the PhiladelphiaOrchestra, the Dallas Symphony and the Mostly Mozart Festival. His theater credits include the Jewish musical review ON SECOND AVENUE and had a starring role in the Broadway musical hit, THOSE WERE THE DAYS, which completed a national tour.Cantor Abelson is presently serving as Cantor at Temple Israel of  the City of New York.