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The Battenkill Chorale, founded by Janet McGhee in the fall of
1995, is a 110-voice unauditioned chorus from six counties in New
York and Vermont presenting exciting performances of a wide and
varied repertory of choral music. The Battenkill Chorale has
open enrollment, with auditions for vocal placement and solos only.
Rehearsals are on Thursday evenings from 7:30-9:45 pm at Hubbard
Hall, 25 East Main Street, Cambridge, NY. There is a $25 membership
fee per concert program, plus the cost of music. There is a
$25 membership fee per concert program, plus the cost of music.
Now in its twelfth season, the Battenkill Chorale has gained a
reputation for performing challenging programs, stretching the
boundaries for both performer and audience alike. The Chorale
received critical acclaim for its performance in and organization
of PinkhamFest '98, which celebrated the life and work of American
composer Daniel Pinkham. The 2000 season included debut
performances with the Manchester Music Festival and Glens Falls
Symphony Orchestra, with a return invitation in May 2003 from the
GFSO for a riveting performance of Honegger’s King David. The
Battenkill Chorale has been a top decentralization grant recipient
in Washington County since its inception. With the
commissioned world premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s A Spectacle of
Glory in 2003, the Battenkill Chorale again put itself in the
forefront of the choral music scene in the greater Capital
District. Its riveting performances of Mendelssohn's Elijah
in February 2005 and Mozart’s Requiem in June 2006 were universally
hailed by critics.
Based at historic Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, the Chorale offers
area singers a unique opportunity to perform choral literature
extending from intimate chamber pieces of the Renaissance to larger
scale dramatic works for soloists, chorus and orchestra. The richly
varied repertoire includes both sacred and secular music from the
15th to 20th centuries, all sung in the original language.
The Chorale also is devoted to fostering a love of choral singing
in young people through collaborative performance opportunities and
scholarship awards. The repertoire of the Chorale includes
English madrigals, American shape note, Russian and Jewish
liturgical music, opera choruses, and works by Bach, Ives, Part,
Brahms, Schutz, Bloch, Messiaen, Faure, Vivaldi, Bernstein,
Monteverdi, Lauridsen, Schubert, Handel, Orff, Mendelssohn, Poulenc,
Durufle, Billngs, Copland, Thompson, Barber, and Pinkham.
Ms. McGhee, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of
Music, comes to this area from Boston, where she was Associate
Conductor in the Choral Department of the New England Conservatory
of Music, Director of Choral Activities at both Clark University
and Simmons College, instructor of choral technique at the Berkley
College of Music, Director of Music at the Commonwealth School, and
Choirmaster for the Boston Summer Opera Company. In addition,
she was director of a Boston-based community chorus which made four
concert tours to the former Soviet Union and has subsequently
appeared in Russia as a solo vocal recitalist.
Janet McGhee, founding Artistic Director of the Battenkill Chorale,
is one of the Capital District's most respected choral conductors.
She is the Director of the Choral Program and Lecturer in Music at
Skidmore College, was an Adjunct Professor of Music at Bennington
College, has served as assistant conductor of the Burnt Hills
Oratorio Society, and guest conductor for the Burnt Hills Oratorio
Society, the Schenectady and Bennington County Choral Societies,
the WCAMTA music festival, and the Eastern New York American Guild
of Organists Mozart ChoralFest. After a year long battle with
breast cancer in 2004, Ms. McGhee made her triumphant return to the
podium in February 2005 to resounding critical acclaim.
Ms. McGhee's choirs have performed at Carnegie Hall and Symphony
Hall in Boston, as well as numerous concert halls throughout the
former Soviet Union. She has prepared choirs for Seiji Ozawa,
Peter Schickele, Gunther Schuller, Michael Tilson Thomas, Vladimir
Vais (Bolshoi Theatre conductor), Daniel Pinkham, the Glens Falls
Symphony Orchestra, and the Manchester Music Festival.
In 2006, The Battenkill Chorale was awarded a $2000 grant from the
New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program,
administered locally by the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council,
in support of its eleventh anniversary concert season. It is also
the subject of a full length documentary film being produced by
Cambridge videographer John Oakley. Plans are underway for a
Russian choral tour for the summer of 2008.
These concerts are made possible, in part, with public funds from
the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program,
administered locally by the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council. |
