Mendelssohn, Bach, Beethoven
8pm, Saturday, December 8th, 2007
Sanders Theater, Harvard University
Featuring the Harvard University Choir
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Featured Artists
The Harvard University Choir
Comprising of fifty voices, the Harvard University Choir is a select group of students that perform during every Sunday morning service of The Memorial Church. The choir attracts singers who desire the challenge of performing a wide variety of music at a professional standard each week. In addition to the annual Christmas carol services, the Sunday Choir performs concerts that have included Handel's Solomon, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Libby Larsen's Missa Gaia, and Mozart's Idomeneo and Requiem.
Under the direction of Edward Elwyn Jones, the Sunday Choir has sung at many churches and music festivals in New England, and has embarked on three tours of Europe, including performances in London, Paris, Helsinki, and Nuremberg. Additionally, the Choral Fellows tour annually, most recently to Montreal, San Francisco, and Martha's Vineyard. During the coming spring break, in March 2007, the Sunday Choir will embark on a week-long tour of Mexico. Over the past few years the University Choir has collaborated with Collegium Regale of King's College, Cambridge, the Boston Camerata, and such distinguished musicians as Andrew Parrott, Christopher Hogwood, and Joel Cohen. Recordings of the Harvard University Choir are available worldwide on a variety of labels including ASV, Gothic, and Pro Organo. They include the music of Amy Beach and Randall Thompson recorded in London, and the world premiere recording of Lotti's Mass for Three Choirs. Our recording of Ned Rorem's Works for Choir and Organ has just been released by Sanctuary Classics.
Harvard University Choir Official Website
Edward Elwyn Jones, guest conductor
Edward Elwyn Jones is the seventh Gund University Organist and Choirmaster in The Memorial Church, Harvard University, where he directs the University Choir in daily and Sunday services. In the spring of 2004 he directed a semi-staged performance of Handel's Solomon in collaboration with the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, and in June he led a successful choir tour to Montreal, Canada. In addition, Mr. Jones conducts the annual Christmas carol service, the oldest of its kind in the United States.
A native of Wales, Mr. Jones studied music at Cambridge University, where he was Organ Scholar of Emmanuel College, and the conductor of three university orchestras. He moved to the United States in 1998, serving firstly as Organ Scholar and then as Assistant Organist in The Memorial Church at Harvard. During this time he also directed several operas for the Harvard Early Music Society, including Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and Cavalli's Giasone. From 2000-2003 Mr. Jones was the Assistant Organist of Christ Church United Methodist on Park Avenue in New York City, while pursuing a master's degree in orchestral conducting at The Mannes College of Music. Upon graduation he was awarded the Felix Salzer Memorial Award, and the following year he worked as Assistant Conductor for The Mannes Opera. Mr. Jones has conducted performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea in the Reykjavic Summer Opera Festival, Iceland.
Noam Elkies, piano
Noam D. Elkies is professor of mathematics at Harvard and the youngest person ever tenured at the University. His work on elliptic curves, lattices and other aspects of the theory of numbers has been recognized by such prizes and awards as the Presidential Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation and the Prix Peccot of the College de France.
Alongside his mathematical career, Elkies has been playing the piano and composing since the age of three. Born in New York, he studied piano with A.Vardi in Israel, and with J.Carlson at the Juilliard Pre-College after returning to the States in 1978; his composition teachers have included Sadai, Davidovsky and Kirchner. His solo performances include Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, and his own Rondo Concertante, with the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras' Repertory Orchestra in Boston's Symphony Hall. More recently, he played Mendelssohn's First Piano Concerto with Divertimenti III, and a recital of original piano music at University Hall. His compositions, often but not always in styles that recognizably flow from traditional idioms, include the abovementioned Rondo Concertante; the "Brandenburg Concerto #7", commissioned and premiered by the Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble; and Yossele Solovey, an opera staged in 1999.
Professor Elkies' Personal Website