Mechanics Hall:
321 Main St, Worcester
Despite its name, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio isn’t only for December. The Christmas Oratorio is a collection of six cantatas historically performed at different points throughout the Christmas/Advent season, and is divided into different sections that tell the story of the Christmas season. Composer John Harbison describes Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as Germany’s “seasonal equivalent to the English-speaking world’s Messiah” with its overarching message of jubilation and grandiose. Come see for yourself why this work has lived on for hundreds of years.
The Worcester Chorus of Music Worcester has the unique distinction of being one of the most outstanding on-going choral groups in the United States. Founded in 1858 to sing at the first annual Worcester Music Festival in the newly-built Mechanics Hall, the 100-member group includes both amateur and professional singers from Worcester County, northern Connecticut and the Boston area. Its repertoire includes not only choral masterpieces, but also contemporary literature, arrangements of American folk songs, classics from musical theater and commissioned works. Each year the Chorus performs with orchestras and soloists in Mechanics Hall as part of Music Worcester’s main season, including an annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. Beginning in the 2024-2025 Music Worcester season and continuing through March 21, 2035, the Worcester Chorus will be key participants in THE COMPLETE BACH project. The Worcester Chorus has also made guest appearances throughout the Northeast and overseas.
The Worcester Chorus has appeared with the Hartford Symphony, the American Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Center, and the Prague Symphony at Carnegie Hall. The Chorus performed at the 1992 American Choral Directors Association Eastern Division Convention in Boston, and has appeared at the Worcester Music Festival with the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Rochester Philharmonic, and the symphonies of Boston, Baltimore, and Detroit.
Acclaimed for her beautiful clarion tone, power and natural musicianship, Louise Fauteux is regarded as one of the most versatile sopranos performing today. That versatility has allowed her opportunities with some of todays most celebrated institutions and musicians including; including a solo role in Peer Gynt with the New York Philharmonic and actor John de Lancie, a theatrical version of the St. Matthew Passion at the Brooklyn Academy of Music directed by Jonathan Miller, a tour of Venice with DiCapo Opera and the Fairfield Chorale as soloist under conductor Johannes Somary, and opera arias with the Jenaer Philharmonic in Weimar, Germany. Ms. Fauteux has sung the roles of Pamina in The Magic Flute, Belinda from Dido and Aeneas, Gretel from Hansel and Gretel, Violetta from La Traviata, and Lucy from The Telephone, among others. She was a finalist in the MacAllister Awards national operatic competition, and has received awards and honors from the Bethlehem Bach Festival, Connecticut Opera and the Carmel Bach Festival.
As a chorister Ms. Fauteux has had the opportunity to perform alongside the Mark Morris Dance Company, to premiere Michael Torke’s “Four Seasons” with the New York Philharmonic, and to tour France, Korea and Taiwan with the acclaimed Westminster Choir under Joseph Flummerfelt. She also participated in Marlboro Music Festivals with the Blanche Moyse Chorale.
An active performer in the Northeastern United States, Ms. Fauteux frequently appears with ensembles such as Concora, the New Haven Chorale, the Worcester Chorus, Con Brio, Farmington Valley Chorale, Connecticut Master Chorale, Connecticut Chamber Choir and Litchfield County Chorale Union. She makes her Carnegie Hall debut with The Messiah in December of 2022.
Louise Fauteux was asked by the Charles Ives society to record “Borrowed” Tunes for the catalogue of Ives’ music found at www.charlesives.org. She has also recorded popular music for Dreamcatcher Studios and Bright Lights music, and has made appearances on Channel 3’s “Better Connecticut” morning television show with Scot Haney.
Currently, Ms. Fauteux is the resident artist for the Cathedral of Saint Joseph, and served as adjunct voice faculty for the Hartt School of Music for several years. Ms. Fauteux completed a Master of Music in Vocal Pedagogy and Performance from Westminster Choir College, and earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Keene State College.
Mezzo-soprano Megan Roth is a vibrant and versatile artist, praised for her “rich character portrayals” and “versatile voice.” She excels in opera, oratorio, art song, and chamber music, spanning early to contemporary works. Recently, Megan debuted with the activist opera company White Snake Projects, setting a record for the fastest costume changes while performing three roles. Her portrayal of Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre with the New England Repertory Orchestra captivated audiences, and her “smoldering” Tisbe in La Cenerentola with Boston Midsummer Opera earned acclaim. Her playful Despina in Così fan tutte marked a triumphant post-pandemic return to live theater.
Other highlights include Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Summer Garden Opera, Meg in Little Women with MassOpera, and solo appearances in Copland’s In the Beginning, Handel’s Messiah, and Dixit Dominus. As founder and artistic director of Calliope’s Call, Megan leads a New England-based ensemble blending contemporary and traditional art song.
Her operatic credits include Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Maria Padilla, Béatrice et Bénédict, Trouble in Tahiti, and Giulio Cesare. Concert performances feature works by Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Duruflé. A 2020 finalist for the Ernst Bacon Memorial Prize in The American Prize Competition, she was also a 2014 finalist in the Opera Division.
A distinguished chamber musician, Megan performs with GRAMMY®-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble, True Concord, and Yale Choral Artists. An accomplished violinist, she was featured on Skylark’s 2021 GRAMMY®-nominated album It’s a Long Way. Roth holds an Artist Certificate in Opera and an M.M. in Vocal Performance from Florida State University and a B.M. in Violin Performance from DePaul University. She enjoys reading, yoga, and hiking with her husband and their Boston Terriers, Bronx and Brooklyn.
Charles Blandy has been praised as “unfailingly, tirelessly lyrical” (Boston Globe); “fearless” (New York Times); “a versatile tenor with agility, endless breath, and vigorous high notes” (Goldberg Early Music Magazine); and for his “clear, focused, gorgeous tenor voice” (Worcester Telegram and Gazette).
He makes his Boston Symphony Orchestra/Carnegie Hall debut in 2024 in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. He is a core member of Emmanuel Music, and regularly appears in their ongoing Bach Cantata series. With Emmanuel he performed at BachFest Leipzig; and has sung the Evangelist in Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions, and lead roles in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute, and Handel’s Ariodante.
He has performed Bach’s B minor mass with Orchestra Iowa; the Apollo Chorus of Chicago; and the American Classical Orchestra (NYC) at Lincoln Center. He sang Handel’s Messiah with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, Vespers of 1610, L’Orfeo, and assorted madrigals with Boston Early Music Festival; Messiah and St. Matthew Passion with the American Bach Soloists (SF, CA). He has appeared with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Music of the Baroque (Chicago), Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Charlotte Symphony.
He gave the US premiere of Gerald Barry’s Canada at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. With Boston Modern Orchestra Project he recorded Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories; and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts. With Collage New Music he recorded Rodney Lister’s chamber song cycle Friendly Fire, and gave the US premiere of Rautavaara’s song cycle Die Liebenden.
A recitalist of wide repertoire, he has performed Schubert’s Schwanengesang at the Token Creek Festival (WI) and at Tufts University; Winterreise at Tufts; Auf dem Strom and Brahms songs with Boston Chamber Music Society; and songs of Finzi and Janacek’s Diary of One Who Disappeared at Monadnock Music (NH). He gave recitals of contemporary American songs in New York, Boston, London and Manchester UK, with Rodney Lister at the piano. Charles Blandy is a member of Beyond Artists, a coalition that supports good causes through their work. He studied at Oberlin College, Indiana University, and Tanglewood Music Center. He is the product of a strong public school arts program in Troy NY.
Kevin Deas has gained international renown as one of America’s leading bass-baritones. He is perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title role in Porgy and Bess, having performed it with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, as well as the most illustrious orchestras on the North American continent, and at the Ravinia, Vail and Saratoga festivals.
Kevin Deas’ 2023-24 season includes performances of Mozart’s Requiem with the Vermont Symphony and Mobile Symphony, Handel’s Messiah with the North Carolina Symphony, National Cathedral, Houston Symphony, and the NAC Orchestra in Ottawa. Other notable performances in the season include a Gershwin program with Oregon Symphony and Rochester Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Pacific Symphony, Brahms’s German Requiem with Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and will be performing the role of Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Boston Baroque, as well as the role of Dick Hallorann in Paul Moravec’s critically acclaimed opera The Shining with the Opera Atlanta. Other recent highlights include performances with New York Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Portland Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Phoenix Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Omaha Symphony, and Jacksonville Symphony.
A proponent of contemporary music, Kevin Deas has performed Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors at Italy’s Spoleto Festival, Derek Bermel’s The Good Life with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and Hannibal Lokumbe’s Dear Mrs. Parks with the Detroit Symphony. He also enjoyed a twenty-year collaboration with the late jazz legend Dave Brubeck.
Kevin Deas has recorded Wagner’s Die Meistersinger (Decca/London) with the Chicago Symphony under Sir Georg Solti and Varèse’s Ecuatorial with the ASKO Ensemble under Riccardo Chailly. Other releases include Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Vox Classics); Dave Brubeck’s To Hope! with the Cathedral Choral Society (Telarc); Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Virginia Symphony and Boston Baroque (Linn Records); and Dvorák in America (Naxos).
Since 2016, the Winchendon Music Festival (WMF) has built a series of local, national, and international artists spanning several genres—classical, folk, jazz, world, and more. Multi-instrumentalist, Andrew Arceci
has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Recording credits include APM Music/Juice Music, Cedille Records, Centaur Records, Music & Arts, NPR, PRI, Silent Witness––television series by BBC One (UK), BBC Radio 3 (UK), Novum (UK), Bôłt Records/Monotype Records (Poland), Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (Germany), and Deutschlandradio (Germany). He has taught at several institutions, including Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College (Director, Collegium Musicum), and Worcester State University. Additionally, he has given lectures, masterclasses, and/or workshops at Illinois Wesleyan University, the International Baroque Institute at Longy (Bard College), the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, the Narnia Arts Academy (Italy), Institutum Romanum Finlandiae (Italy), Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan), and Burapha University (Thailand). Arceci was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies during the 2019-2020 academic year.
Now in his sixteenth year as Artistic Director of the Worcester Chorus, Chris also serves as conductor of the Connecticut Choral Artists (CONCORA), Connecticut’s oldest professional choir. In May 2024, Chris launched THE COMPLETE BACH, a 132-concert project to present live performances of all of J.S. Bach’s works for the first time ever in America. This monumental undertaking, under the auspices of Music Worcester, was inspired by Chris’s BACH2010 project, in which his Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra performed all of Bach’s choral cantatas in Sydney, Australia. THE COMPLETE BACH brings together local ensembles as well as internationally recognized performers such as pianists Jeremy Denk and Simone Dinnerstein, and Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music.
His musical interests hardly stop in the eighteenth century, however. Chris has conducted much of the most prominent largescale choral-orchestral repertoire, including major works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Poulenc, and Britten; a career highlight was the 2022 performance by the Worcester and Masterwork Choruses of Verdi’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall. He has also performed many works by contemporary composers and has premiered works by such composers as Ricky Ian Gordon, Gwyneth Walker, Martin Sedek, Robert Convery, Anna K Jacobs, and Amy Bernon. His choirs have collaborated with a number of orchestras, such as the Juilliard Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, in venues that include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall in New York, as well as the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Chris has prepared choirs for major international conductors, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Simone Young, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and William Boughton, as well as for Broadway legend Patti Lupone and Ray Davies of the Kinks. For a decade, Chris was conductor of the Masterwork Chorus in New Jersey, with whom he performed Handel’s Messiah annually at Carnegie Hall; he also led the Dessoff Choir in New York City from 2010 to 2016. Chris made his conducting debut with the New Haven Symphony in 2015.
A committed music educator, Chris has served on the faculty of the Taft School, Sydney Grammar School, Hotchkiss Summer Portals, and Holy Cross College. He founded the Litchfield County Children’s Choir in 1990, and has conducted numerous middle and high school regional and All-State choirs in New England, New York and Australia. He presented two documentaries with SBS-TV, an Australian national public television network, and has given several presentations at conferences for American Choral Directors Association and Australian National Kodàly Association. Chris has been a guest conductor at Emmanuel Church in Boston, a church renowned for its five-decade Bach cantata project, and he currently serves as Music Director of St John’s Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut.
A pianist and keyboard continuist, Chris holds degrees from the Hartt School, the Yale School of Music (where he studied choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks) and the University of Sydney. He researched the performance history of Bach’s B Minor Mass in New York City for his PhD in Musicology; his dissertation won the American Choral Directors Association’s 2012 Julius Herford Prize for outstanding doctoral thesis in choral music.
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