Finger Lakes Choral Festival

Finger Lakes Choral Festival Performance at Chautauqua Institution

2013 Choral Festival – Grieg Peer Gynt and Dvořák Stabat Mater

Edvard Grieg's brilliant Peer Gynt Suites are known to virtually everyone, but many do not know that they are taken from the seldom performed Incidental Music to Henrik Ibsen's dramatic poem Peer Gynt. This is a musical fantasy that has it all: predation, betrayal, sex, humor, chicanery, love, redemption, and the warm glow of a sappy ending.

Also on the program is Antonin Dvorak's stunning setting of Stabat Mater, a work so powerful that there will be few dry eyes in the audience, but far from being depressing, the gripping conclusion of this mighty work will make you feel like you have visited the gates of Paradise.

2012 Choral Festival – The Berlioz Requiem - Hailed as the "MEGA-CONCERT OF THE YEAR"

In a unique partnership of over 300 singers and musicians from New York and San Francisco, the combined Finger Lakes Choral Festival, Redwood Symphony and augmented San Francisco Lyric Chorus presented a spectacular program, featuring the Berlioz Requiem, on August 5, at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, the home of the San Francisco Symphony. The concert was hailed by San Francisco Classical Voice as the "Mega-Concert of the Year. Or Years!" And further added that the program "Exceeded all expectations."

Many singers and musicians reported that this performance was the musical highlight of their lives, and even more are clamoring for another combined performance again, possibly next time around at Carnegie Hall. Stay tuned!

Rehearsal of the Berlioz Requiem at Davies Symphony Hall, August 4, 2012

Listen to the blazing conclusion of the Dies Irae from the Berlioz Requiem

Dies Irae concusion

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, now in its tenth season, 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. The Choral Festival has performed before over 30,000 concert-goers, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra at the 5000 seat CMAC Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra at Chautauqua Institution's Historic Amphitheater, with Redwood Symphony at Louise M. Davies Hall in San Francisco, 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, visit the Registration Information link below. 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