The Finger Lakes Choral Festival

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Finger Lakes Choral Festival Performance at Chautauqua Institution

2009 - Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

So many great choral works - so little time!  With this in mind, we went right to the top of the short list to take on the challenge of performing possibly the greatest choral work of all, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis - - a towering masterpiece that bursts at the seams with unforgettable power, pathos and soul-searing beauty.  

Performances take place on Saturday, July 25 at 8 PM and Sunday, July 26 at 4 PM, at Hochstein Performance Hall in Rochester. For further information, visit the "Concert and Ticket Information" link at the bottom of this page. You will not want to miss hearing this seldom performed majestic work. Beethoven himself thought it to be his finest effort and inscribed on the title page, "From the heart, may it in turn return to the heart."


Click the following link to hear the stunning finale of the Gloria

Gloria finale


2008 - BEETHOVEN ROCKS! - The featured works for the 2008 Finger Lakes Choral Festival were the Ode to Joy movement of the Ninth Symphony and the Choral Fantasy. In addition to these well-known works, our 2008 program included a sampling of seldom performed works that had not been heard before by most in the audience, but that will not soon be forgotten.

On Saturday, July 26, the Choral Festival performed Beethoven's Choral Fantasy at Chautauqua Institution before an audience of nearly 5,000 concert goers. This is the fifth consecutive year that the chorus has performed at this historic oasis of art and culture.

To Purchase a CD of Beethoven Rocks!

Review of Chautauqua concert


2007 - OUR DEVILISHLY EXCITING PROGRAM - FAUST, CARMINA & THE NINTH - We raised the roof at Hochstein Performance Hall on Saturday, July 28, and Sunday, July 29, with a rollicking celebration of earthly pleasures and capricious fate, and blew the audience away with the devilishly exciting final scenes from the Faustian operas of Berlioz and Boito. As advertised, our massive chorus took that pulse-pounding ride through Pandemonium and emerged triumphant over the forces of evil in the breathtaking, jaw-dropping finale.

On August 18, as an encore to our 2007 season, the Choral Festival once again visited Chautauqua Institution, this time to sing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Uri Segal's farewell performance as regular conductor of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. The historic amphitheater, pictured above, was packed to the gills with over 6,000 enthralled spectators, and when the music stopped, there was an explosion of cheers that rocked the gentility of this peaceful oasis of art and culture. It was electric!



The Choral Festival makes the New York Times. Click the following link to read the article and hear the NY Times Online performance of Mozart's Ave Verum from our 2006 Choral Festival.

New York Times Online article

       
       

The Mission of the Finger Lakes Choral Festival

The Finger Lakes Choral Festival brings together singers each summer from more than 50 Greater Rochester and Finger Lakes area communities, as well as visitors from other states and countries. During the past four years, the Choral Festival has performed before nearly 20,000 concert-goers, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra at the 5000 seat CMAC Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua, with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra at Chautauqua Institution's Historic Amphitheater, and at Hochstein Performance Hall in Rochester.

All singers with prior choral experience are invited to participate. For information on how to join the chorus, click on the Registration Information link. To be added to our mailing list, please send your name and address--and also your voice part if you are interested in singing in future concerts.

fingerlakeschoral@earthlink.net

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