Ottorino Respighi

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – The Northern Berkshire Chorale will present a winter concert of sacred music by Orlando Gibbons, J.S. Bach, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Handel, and Ottorini Respighi on Friday, January 11, 2013, at 7:30p.m. in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus. The choir is under the direction of Andrea Goodman and accompanied by Susan Hadfield.

The choir will perform a concert of choral classics beginning with three powerful verse anthems by Orlando Gibbons, including the rarely heard This is the Record of John. The choir also will sing selections from one of J.S. Bach’s most popular works, the Magnificat in D; the Kyrie and Gloria from the Messe de minuit by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and several sections of  Handel’s Messiah. From the twentieth century will be the opening chorus of  Ottorini Respighi’s Laud to the nativity and Charles Stanford’s Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem.

The Chorale is a community choir in its eleventh year and is comprised of faculty and staff from the Williams College community and its environs. Its director, Andrea Goodman, is also the founder and director of the Cantilena Chamber choir based in Lenox. She has been a visiting professor of conducting at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she also directs the women’s choir. During the summer she serves as the Director of the annual summer Saratoga Choral Festival.

Suggested donation for adults is $10, students $5.