Oratorio Society of Minnesota

Based on Virgil's Aeneid, this English Baroque tragedy recounts the love story between the legendary Queen of Carthage, Dido, and the Trojan refugee prince, Aeneas, and her heartbreak at his abandonment of her.

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The Mudville Nine are losing by two runs with two outs in the ninth as The Mighty Casey comes to bat. Schuman's cantata is based on the Ernest Thayer's classic poem of the same name. OSM also presents Brooklyn Baseball Cantat by George Kleinsinger, an imagined account of the 1940s Dodgers winning the World Series against the Yankees.

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On this Mother's Day weekend, we present an all-Brahms concert - Psaml 13, Ave Maria, and his masterpiece, Ein Deutsches Requiem.

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The Summer Chorus is an annual festival chorus sponsored by the Oratorio Society of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota School of Music. Participation is open to all. This year's performance features works from Antonio Vivaldi and J.S. Bach.

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Annelies is the first major choral seetting of the Diary of Anne Frank, with a moving libretto by Melanie Challenger based on the Jewish teenager's remarkable and penetrating observations of life, writte while she and her family were hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic.

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This concerts presents music by Emmy Award-winning composer John Lunn, taken from the popular TV series, plus British choral gems from that era, including Vaughan Williams, Stanford, Parry, Elgar, and Holst. We'll also reenact two scenes from the show, and there will be opportunities for audience members to sing along.

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Donald McCullough's moving 75-minute work hauntingly explores the history of the Underground Railroad and its connection to the African-American spiritual, blending storytelling, lyrics, and sound.

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Vivaldi: Gloria and Bach: Magnificat

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The dramatic story of the patron saint of Minnesota's capital city, Saint Paul, was the first of Mendelssohn's oratorios. Completed in 1835, it was patterned after the passions of J.S. Bach, whose music Mendelssohn had championed. Its three principal themes are the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, the conversion of Saul to Paul, and the apostle's subsequent career. Now rarely performed, this monumental masterwork was one of the most popular pieces of the 19th century.

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Inspired by the overwhelming popularity of last season's Music of Downton Abbey concert and anticipating Season 5 of the PBS television drama, we return to the Gothic splendor of St. Mark's Cathedral for a program of post-Edwardian English choral and orchestral music for Christmas. Lady Alice returns to provide the history of each piece and pair each selection with memorable events from the story line of the Downton Abbey series. Audience sing-alongs and holiday photos are planned - maybe even a visit from St. Nicholas!

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"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything." - Plato

Dreams of flight and music have been linked throughout human existence. We explore this connection through an innovative concert of narration and music recalling the milestones and pioneers of aviation. The Henry Sibley High School Concert Choir joins us as part of the Oratorio Society's Viva Coro! youth engagement program

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King David is a three-part dramatic oratorio telling the biblical story of David that OSM first performed in 1982 in the original French. For this performance, we will use the original 1918 chamber orchestra version and an English translation. Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms draws on seven psalms from the Hebrew Bible to form a complex, challenging, affirmative work in three parts. For this performance, we will use Bernstein's version for organ, harp, and percussion.

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The Summer Chorus is an annual festival chorus sponsored by the Oratorio Society of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota School of Music. Participation is open to all; no auditions required!

This year's performance features Great Opera Choruses, performed with full orchestra and soloists.

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OSM is proud to present a Remembrance Day concert, featuring the Midwest premiere of Twin Cities composer Jeffrey Van's Reaping the Whirlwind/The Harvest of War. The title is derived from the Old Testament book of Hosea, with text based on the poetry of Walt Whitman and several other distinguished authors. The music has been described as 'mournful, moving and poignant' yet 'bright and hopeful for the future.' The concert will also feature English composer Harold Darke's rarely performed 1917 cantata As the Leaves Fall based on the poetry of Joseph Courtney.

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Presented as a part of the mspIFF (Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival), "Voices of Light" is a stunning evening of music and film, merging Carl Dreyer's legendary 1928 silent film masterpiece "The Passion of Joan of Arc," widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, with the live performance of a moving and powerful orchestral/choral score by award-winning American composer Richard Einhorn.

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After the August 26, 1846 premiere, Mendelssohn described his triumph to his brother: No work of mine ever went so admirably at its first performance, nor was received with such enthusiasm by both the musicians and the audience.

Preconcert Conversation with Peter Mercer-Taylor

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Featuring Benjamin Britten's Cantata Misericordium, Britten's Saint Nicolas and Howard Goodall: selections from The Beatitudes: Pro Eis Solitariis (For Those that are lonely), Pro Eis Sine Domo (For the stateless)

Roseville Area High School Bel Canto
Kellen McMillen, conductor

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OSM presents a world premiere of Requiem: A Dramatic Dialogue in Five Parts, Randall Thompson's setting for Double Chorus and Double String Orchestra.

Special guest presentation by Dr. Carl B. Schmidt, Professor Emeritus (Music History and Culture) at Towson University and esteemed Randall Thompson Biographer and Scholar.

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Premiering in Vienna on December 1, 1867, OSM celebrates the 150th Anniversary Year of the work Brahms labored over for 11 years, creating what is considered his Magnum Opus, a requiem which seeks to comfort the living who must deal with and accept death.

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Then spake Sir Launcelot . . . and I shall send a messenger unto my lord Arthur, a treaty for to take; for better is peace than always war

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This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

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The Oratorio Society of Minnesota is proud to join the worldwide celebration of the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein, the composer, the conductor, educator, musician, cultural ambassador, and humanitarian.

Leonard Bernstein – celebrated as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century – ushered in an era of major cultural and technological transition. He led the way in advocating an open attitude about what constituted "good" music, actively bridging the gap between classical music, Broadway musicals, jazz, and rock, and he seized new media for its potential to reach diverse communities of listeners, young and old. Longtime conductor of the New York Philharmonic, renowned composer of works for the concert hall and Broadway stage, glamorous television personality, virtuosic pianist, and committed educator, Bernstein was a multi-tasker long before the term was coined. Bernstein–or "Lenny," as he was often affectionately called–was an extravagantly gifted musician with a common touch. He maintained a life-long focus on advocating for social justice, notably civil rights at home and peace around the world.

Join us for this birthday celebration featuring both classical and theatrical music by one of America's most loved composers.

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With the signing of the Armistice, World War I ended on Nov 11, 1918, at the "eleventh hour on the 11th day of the 11th month." To commemorate this milestone in world history, this Veterans Day concert will present the joint United States premiere of composer Patrick Hawes' The Great War Symphony - a four movement, hour-long work for soloists, chorus and orchestra.* Additional selections will include arrangements of wartime tunes. Presented in collaboration with the U of M Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.

*The world premiere of The Great War Symphony will be Oct 9 at London's Royal Albert Hall, and the joint United States premiere will be Nov 11 at Northrop and Carnegie Hall.

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Join us for an unforgettable evening of stories and music from the Victorian era as we celebrate the bicentennial year of Queen Victoria's birth. With the popularity of the PBS "Victoria" series and the strong support received for our "Downton Abbey" concerts in 2014, we have created a unique program of music which has been carefully researched and sourced from libraries throughout the U.S. and England.

Victoria - A Life in Music will include actors, soloists, chorus, orchestra and organ and will focus on milestones from the Queen's incredible reign of almost 64 years. Songs, instrumental selections and works for chorus and orchestra will feature music by Martin Phipps (PBS "Victoria" theme), Handel, Strauss Sr., Mendelssohn, Wagner, Gounod, Albert (Prince Consort), Stanford, Sullivan, Elgar and Parratt along with traditional Irish and Scottish songs from the Victorian era.

If you enjoyed "The Music of Downton Abbey" and "A Downton Abbey Christmas," you won't want to miss Victoria - A Life in Music.

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