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  • 27 May 2013 11:28 AM | Deleted user

    New Dominion Chorale 

    Thomas Beveridge, Artistic Director

    presents

    Washington Summer Sings!

    31st SEASON of TUESDAY EVENING SING-ALONGS

    Pianist

    Thomas Pandolfi

    with professional soloists each evening at 7:30 p.m.

    June 4: Fauré  Requiem and Cantique de Jean Racine

    Conducted by Robert Shafer, Artistic Director, The City Choir of Washington,

    and Director of Choral Activities, Shenandoah Conservatory

    Ann Coffman, Soprano

    Kevin Johnson, Baritone

    June 11: Mendelssohn Elijah (Choral Excerpts)

    Conducted by Thomas Beveridge, Artistic Director,

    New Dominion Chorale and National Men's Chorus

    Jonathan Lash, Baritone

    June 18: Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem

    Conducted by Scott Tucker, Artistic Director,

    The Choral Arts Society of Washington

    Elizabeth Overmann, Soprano

    Bob McDonald, Baritone

    June 25: Mozart Requiem

    Conducted by J. Reilly Lewis, Music Director,

    Cathedral Choral Society and Washington Bach Consort

    Elizabeth Kluegel, Soprano

    Lindsey Paradise, Alto

    Andy Patterson, Tenor

    David Brundage, Bass

    Western Presbyterian Church

    24th at G Streets, Washington DC

  • 10 May 2013 12:49 PM | Deleted user

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

     

    NEW DOMINION CHORALE TO PRESENT WASHINGTON SUMMER SINGS!

     

    Every Tuesday evening in June since 1992, New Dominion Chorale has sponsored Washington Summer Sings!, group sing-alongs of great choral works conducted by outstanding local choral conductors.

     

    This summer tradition is beloved by the many singers in the area whose choral programs take the summer off.  It is a time to meet old friends and a place to bring guests with similar interests.  It is one of the best aspects of summer in Washington, and further evidence why DC is called the “choral capital of the United States.”

     

    All June 2013 Washington Summer Sings! events will be held at 7:30 PM in the sanctuary at Western Presbyterian Church, 2401 Virginia Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20037, accessible by metro (take the Blue or Orange line to the Foggy Bottom stop and walk south on 24th Street), car (on-street parking is available and public parking garages are nearby), or bus.

     

    Music selections have included the favorite standards for large chorus performances as well as less familiar pieces in which sight-readers can be carried along by other singers in their surrounding section.  WSS! draws its singers from DC, MD, and VA choral groups; church choirs; local universities; high school students; and other interested individuals.  It provides singers with the opportunity to experience firsthand the expertise of some of this area’s finest choral conductors.

     

    Accompanying each sing-along will be New Dominion Chorale’s rehearsal accompanist and international concert pianist Thomas Pandolfi, a graduate of the Juilliard School, who has been steadily building his reputation as one of America’s finest pianists.  Also participating in each event will be professional soloists from the metropolitan Washington, DC area.

     

    The schedule for the June 2013 Washington Summer Sings! is as follows:

     

    Tuesday, June 4, 2013

    Faure:  Requiem and Cantique de Jean Racine

    Conducted by Robert Shafer, Artistic Director, The City Choir of Washington and Director of Choral Activities, Shenandoah Conservatory

     

    Tuesday, June 11, 2013

    Mendelssohn:  Elijah (Choral Excerpts)

    Conducted by Thomas Beveridge, Artistic Director, New Dominion Chorale and National Men’s Chorus

     

    Tuesday, June 18, 2013

    Brahms:  Ein Deutsches Requiem

    Conducted by Scott Tucker, Artistic Director, The Choral Arts Society of Washington

     

    Tuesday, June 25, 2013

    Mozart:  Requiem

    Conducted by J. Reilly Lewis, Music Director of the Cathedral Choral Society and the Washington Bach Consort

     

    New Dominion Chorale, with 235 singing members, is a unique organization: a “singers’ cooperative,” operating without paid management or offices. Described in The Washington Post as “opulent, precise and powerful,” the Chorale has performed most of the standard literature for large chorus and orchestra. In addition to its regular performances at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center on the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College, the Chorale has also appeared at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and the Washington National Cathedral.

     

    The cost of admission for each sing-along is $10 per person.  You may bring your own music scores or rent them at the church for $2 each.

     

    New Dominion Chorale is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the

    VirginiaCommission for the Arts.

    ###

    Photos of Mr. Beveridge and New Dominion Chorale are available at www.newdominion.org under About.

  • 02 Apr 2013 4:47 PM | Deleted user

    David Ginder at WETA has his interview with Tom up on WETA’s website.  Here is the link:  http://www.weta.org/fm/features/classicalconversations/727794/Thomas+Beveridge

    The short version will begin airing as follows:

    Wednesday, April 3:      7:47 AM

    Thursday, April 4:        11:55 AM

    Friday, April 5:               2:50 PM

    It will be aired at other times, too, which he did not specify.

  • 21 Mar 2013 9:08 PM | Deleted user

    How does a church musician’s son, now a prominent American composer, weave Jewish themes into a major choral work?

    That was the challenge facing Thomas Beveridge, artistic director of the New Dominion Chorale, when 20 years ago he set about composing the Yizkor Requiem, an internationally acclaimed choral work that brings Jewish and Christian traditions together in a powerful prayer of thanksgiving and hope for life eternal following the death of a loved one.

    Beveridge grew up in New York City, where his father was the organist and choirmaster at Columbia University Chapel, and later a professor at Virginia Theological Seminary.  Tom’s musical gifts were evident from age five, when he began sitting at the piano and composing.   Soon after, his father began teaching him to read music, and he began his singing career as soprano soloist at Trinity Chapel.  These two callingsundefinedcomposer and singerundefinedhave continued  throughout his career, leading to his major contributions  to the musical life of Washington over the past decades as composer, performer, and conductor.

    His gifts were nurtured by several influential mentors.  In addition to his father, who was his earliest musical influence, his mentors include his teachers at Northfield Mount Hermon School and Harvard, where he was a music major.  They nurtured his compositions and helped him begin publishing them.  In this period of his life, he also began singing as a professional baritone soloist in many places, discovering a way to support himself and his career as a composer. 

    His most important musical mentor--Nadia Boulanger, the famous French teacher of so many American musical giants--arrived at Harvard in 1958 to conduct the Harvard choir.  At this event, Tom Beveridge was the soloist, and she learned of his compositions.  She invited him to study composition with her at the Fontainebleau Conservatory, which he did for two summers.  He says that for the first time, after studying with her, he began to employ the right amount of discipline and structure to his work, without sacrificing vitality and innovation.

    At the time of his college graduation in 1959, the Korean War was over and the buildup to Vietnam had not yet begun.  While the draft existed, the chances of getting called up were low but real.  When a draft notice did arrive, Beveridge immediately signed up for the U.S. Army Chorus, which brought him to the Washington, D.C. area, where he has lived and worked ever since. 

    Membership in the Army Chorus brought stability of income, benefits, and time for composition.  Some of his musical friends thought he was crazy for continuing as a military professional, but that role allowed him time for many other endeavors.  After retiring from the army, he took up choral conducting, forming his own choral groups, the New Dominion Chorale and the National Men’s Chorus.  He has also served as Director of Choral Activities at George Mason University, as Chorus Master of the Washington National Opera, and on the faculty of the Levine School of Music.  He has been organist and choir director of Western Presbyterian Church in Foggy Bottom for the past 18 years.  As a self-identified “practical artist,” he saw that these jobs could provide him with a built-in opportunity to showcase his choral compositions.

    His wide-ranging performance career exposed him to a variety of religious traditions.  While raised in a Christian family, he never fully embraced Christianity. Inspired by his father, who studied and was open to the messages of many faiths, Tom was very ecumenical in his beliefs and spiritual practices. In addition to his Christian heritage, he learned a great deal about Judaism as a paid singer in many different synagogues. As his father had done, he studied Hebrew and learned the close connection between the texts and messages of both faith traditions. 

    It is thus not surprising that, after his parents died, he chose to honor them by composing the Yizkor Requiem in their memory. The text comes from the Jewish memorial service, and those words are intertwined with the words of the Requiem mass that forms the basis of many well-known choral works such as the Verdi and Mozart requiems.  Beveridge did not use all of the Catholic mass text, but chose those portions that were most compelling to him (leaving out the Dies Irae, for example, as contrary to his own beliefs).  The importance of the Jewish portions to the composer cannot be over-emphasized.  When asked about the single most important factor in a successful performance of the Yizkor Requiem, Beveridge replies that it is the choice of a Jewish cantor as the tenor soloist.  For an optimal performance, the cantor must be free to improvise and let the voice soar to emotional heights.

    We invite you to attend a performance of this important workundefinedpremiered in 1994 and performed regularly in a variety of settings since that timeundefinedon April 7 at 4 pm at the Schlesinger Center in Alexandria (tickets available at www.newdominion.org).  The program also includes several psalm settings by Felix Mendelssohn, a composer who was also very comfortable with both Jewish and Christian traditions.  The day of the performance has special meaning as Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom HaShoah). 

  • 04 Feb 2013 10:31 AM | Deleted user

    Welcome to our new website.  We welcome suggestions for improvements.  Just send an email to webmaster@newdominion.org or president@newdominion.org with any ideas.

    Any news posted must pertain to the New Dominion Chorale.  We restrict news and posts to items about our sponsors or the New Dominion Chorale.

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