MESSIAH
she returned to Hyogo Performing Arts
Center for a New Year’s Eve Concert and
then performed Carmen at Seiji Ozawa
Music Academy.
Recent highlights include Meg Page
in Falstaff at Opera Colorado and the
title role of Orfeo ed Euridice at Portland
Opera. She performed the title role of
Carmen at Michigan Opera Theatre and
Austin Opera, and returned to the role of
Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro for
performances at the Hyogo Performing
Arts Center in Japan.
Sandra Piques Eddy makes her BSO debut.
Norman Shankle
American Tenor
Norman Shankle is
currently enjoying
worldwide acclaim for
his portrayals of Mozart
and Rossini’s most famous tenors. The
Boston Globe called Shankle “a real find, a
singer of elegance, grace and conviction,”
and the San Francisco Chronicle praised
him equally as “clearly a singer to watch.”
This season Shankle performs as a soloist
in Handel’s Messiah with the Phoenix
Symphony; in Bach’s Cantata BWV
29 and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade
to Music with the Atlanta Symphony
Orchestra; and sings Mozart’s Requiem
and Missa Solemnis with the National
Philharmonic. Recently, Shankle
performed the role of Remus in
Treemonisha with Phoenicia Festival of
the Voice and performed as a soloist in
Handel’s Messiah with Boston Baroque
and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with
the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra.
Norman Shankle last appeared with the BSO
in December 2017, performing in Messiah,
Ed Polochick, conductor
Sidney Outlaw
Lauded by The
New York Times as a
“terrific singer” with
a “deep, rich timbre”
and the San Francisco
Chronicle as an “opera powerhouse”
with a “weighty and forthright” sound,
Sidney Outlaw was the Grand Prize
winner of the Concurso Internacional de
Canto Montserrat Caballe in 2010
and delights audiences in the U.S.
and abroad with his rich and versatile
baritone and engaging stage presence. A
graduate of the Merola Opera Program,
this rising American baritone from
Brevard, North Carolina recently added
a Grammy nomination to his list of
accomplishments for the Naxos Records
recording of Darius Milhaud’s 1922
opera trilogy L’Orestie d’Eschyle, in which
he sang the role of Apollo.
The 2019–20 season includes
his San Francisco Opera debut
as the First Mate in Billy Budd,
Messiah with the National Symphony
Orchestra, Tommy McIntyre in Fellow
Travelers with Madison Opera, Dizzy
Gillespie in Yardbird with New
Orleans Opera, Beethoven’s Missa
solemnis with the Colorado Symphony
and Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with
the Toledo Symphony.
and Catholic Charities. In 2015 CAB
produced a groundbreaking collaboration
with the Baltimore Rock Opera Society
at 2640 Space, a partnership that
continued into 2016 at the Light City
Baltimore festival.
BSO Symphonic Chorale last appeared with
the BSO in December 2018, performing in
Messiah, Edward Polochick, conductor.
About the Concert
MESSIAH
George Frideric Handel
Born in Halle, Germany, February 23, 1685,
died in London, U.K., April 14, 1759
Sidney Outlaw last appeared with the BSO
in December 2018, performing in Messiah,
Ed Polochick, conductor
BSO Symphonic Chorale
The BSO Symphonic Chorale, formerly
Concert Artists of Baltimore, joins the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and
Edward Polochick for their rousing
rendition of Handel’s Messiah. Having
performed Polochick’s Messiah for over
30 years, the group was also featured on
the Naxos recording released in 2018. The
rendition is a local must-see Messiah for
Baltimore, and this season, the Symphonic
Chorale will also be featured in the BSO’s
Movie with Orchestra: Amadeus.
Under the umbrella of Concert Artists
of Baltimore (CAB), this ensemble
also performed throughout the region
with Lyric Opera Baltimore, Moscow
Ballet, Ballet Theatre of Maryland,
the Baltimore Basilica, Temple Oheb
Shalom, Johns Hopkins Medical
Institutions, McDaniel College, St.
Louis Church, The Holocaust Museum,
The Visionary Arts Museum, The
Greek Orthodox Church of St. George
Handel’s great oratorio Messiah has
become such a beloved musical icon in
the nearly 270 years since its birth in
1741 that it is not at all surprising that
many myths and legends have grown
up around it. We have been told that
Handel himself compiled its mostly
Biblical text or, alternatively, that it
was sent to him by a stranger; that its
success transformed him overnight
from a bankrupt operatic has-been to
England’s most revered composer; that
at its London premiere the king himself
rose during the “Hallelujah” Chorus to
express his approbation. But Messiah’s
real story is much more complicated,
though no less fascinating.
In the early 1740s, Handel was
indeed in considerable professional
and financial trouble. After emigrating
from Germany to England as a young
man, he had enjoyed a celebrated
career as the country’s leading
composer of operas, sung mostly in
Italian and enhanced by spectacular
costumes and scenic effects.
But by the end of the 1730s, Handel’s
serious grand operas were falling
out of fashion. The success of John
Gay’s much simpler, English-language
The Beggar’s Opera fueled a new
enthusiasm for popular-style comic
operas. Unable to fill London’s opera
houses anymore, Handel retreated
from the field and turned his genius
to sacred dramas, or oratorios.
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