The Singers continued their association with the Rhode Island Philharmonic in a performance of the Fauré Requiem, and began two new collaborations. A performance of the Mozart orchestration of Handel’s Messiah was the first of three annual concerts with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and in February, The Singers introduced a new high school honors chorus – The Junior Providence Singers – in a celebration of American music.

For all its notable achievements, from Kitty Hawk to photographic fly-bys of the outer planets, the twentieth century troubled the human race as no other century. Its wars and violent conflicts caused the deaths of more than 160 million human beings. Music by Julian Wachner, Samuel Barber and Ralph Vaughan Williams examines the relentless human search for an abiding peace in the face of long odds.

8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, 2003, Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, Providence

Read more  About the concert

In the late 1780s, Mozart was in Vienna, directing revivals of Handel oratorios, most of which Mozart had reworked himself. His version of Messiah (1789) added woodwinds and doubling brass and reworked enough of the score to earn its own Köchel number. “Although this is still clearly Handel,” Robert Mealy wrote in the program notes, “there is no doubt that he has been made to speak with a fairly thick Viennese accent.”

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003, VMA Arts and Cultural Center, Providence
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 20, 2003, Woolsey Hall, New Haven, Conn.

Read more  About the concert

Gabriel Fauré: Requiem, Opus 48
Camille Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Opus 78

Alasdair Neale, conductor

The Rhode Island Philharmonic, Larry Rachleff, music director
The Providence Singers, Julian Wachner, artistic director
   Preparation by Andrew Clark, resident conductor
Kendra Colton, soprano
Stephen Salters, baritone

8 p.m. Sunday, April 17, 2004, VMA Arts and Cultural Center, Providence

This concert of American music from Charles Ives to Duke Ellington featured the first appearance in concert of the Junior Providence Singers and a special guest appearance by Robert Page, conductor of the Mendelssohn Choir in Pittsburgh.

3 p.m. Sunday, February 29, 2004, Sayles Hall, Brown University

Read more  About the concert

The Russian Orthodox Church of the mid-19th century did not support liturgical settings by secular composers, but composers could not resist the rich texts and ancient chants. A ban on Tchaikovsky’s own Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was still in force when Rachmaninoff introduced his in 1910. Rachmaninoff’s better-known Vespers would follow five years later. Andrew Clark led The Singers in a performance that was the finale of the 2004 Red House Festival.

7 p.m. Sunday, June 20, 2004, All Saints’ Memorial Church, Providence

Read more  About the concert