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Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel. The text was compiled from the King James Bible and the Coverdale Psalter by Charles Jennens. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and received its London premiere a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music.
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The Toronto Choral Society was founded in 1845. Music was a popular form of entertainment for a rapidly growing and prosperous population, so a group of citizens formed a choral society in order to give concerts and foster the development of the local musical community. F.W. Barron, the headmaster of Upper Canada College, became the choir's first president, and James P. Clarke, organist at St. James Cathedral, was its first conductor.
Stephen Anthony Simon was an American conductor, composer, and arranger. He was a noted proponent of the music of George Frederic Handel, serving as music director of the Handel Society of New York and recording several of Handel's operas and oratorios for the RCA label. Simon also became known for his pioneering programming of works for orchestra and narrator for young people, including his own Casey at the Bat and The Tortoise and the Hare.
Adele Laeis Baldwin was an American composer, contralto singer, and voice and speech teacher at the Institute of Musical Art.
References
Notes
- ↑ "City Will Honor Oratorio Society", 1 May 1974. The New York Times . Retrieved 7 January 2017. (subscription required)
- ↑ "OSNY Awarded UNESCO Medal", March 2003, website of Oratorio Society of New York
Sources
- Archives of the Oratorio Society of New York, 1873–present.
- Damrosch, Walter. My Musical Life. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926.
- Hendrick, Burton J. and Daniel Henderson. Louise Whitfield Carnegie: The Life of Mrs. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Hastings House, 1950.
- Krehbiel, H. E., Choral Music in New York: Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music and the Oratorio Society of New York. 1894.
- Martin, George. The Damrosch Family. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983.
- Stebbins, Lucy Poate and Richard Poate Stebbins. Frank Damrosch: Let the People Sing. Durham: Duke University Press, 1945.
