Vespers 1610, An Early Music Blog

The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys

If you are a member of the Saint Thomas congregation, or have ever strolled into the church for a Sunday morning service, or dropped in for Evensong you know about the choir. They are one of the finest in the world.

Regular visitors to this blog know that I can go on and on about Monteverdi and his miraculous Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610. We celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Vespers this year and the March 19th performance with John Scott conducting The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys with His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, Concert Royal and some superb soloists is going to be another highlight of New York’s celebration of the work. Festivities kicked off with the Green Mountain Project’s revelatory one-voice-on-a-part performance at Saint Mary the Virgin in January and if you enjoyed that, you owe yourself the treat of hearing the “big band” version of the work at Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue.

The 1610 Vespers title page

I’m a member of the Saint Thomas congregation and have the joy of hearing the choir every Sunday morning. Whether it’s Victoria or Vaughan Williams, it’s always a sublime experience. The choir excels in Italian music of the early baroque— I’ve heard them sing Croce, Andrea Gabrieli (the marvelous Missa brevis, a work that deserves wider recognition), Grandi and others—so they are going to soar in the Monteverdi.

Tickets are available at the Saint Thomas Church website.

This entry was posted on March 3, 2010 at 5:43 and is filed under News with tags Claudio Monteverdi, Concert Royal, Green Mountain Project, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, John Scott, Saint Thomas Church Choir of Men and Boys, Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.