Finger Lakes Choral Festival

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 playfully exuberant Choral Fantasy. In addition to the symphonic works that are so familiar, Beethoven wrote in many diverse forms and styles: music for the theater, songs, settings of folk songs—even a Cantata for the 1814 Congress of Vienna, convened to change the face of Europe after Napoleon’s defeat. Our 2008 program included a sampling of some of these diverse works, many that had not been heard before by most in the audience, but that will not soon be forgotten.

WOULD YOU LIKE A CD OF THIS UNUSUAL CONCERT? Click on the link "To Purchase a CD of Beethoven Rocks!"

CHAUTAUQUA ADDED! The Choral Festival has been invited to perform the Choral Fantasy at Chautauqua Institution on Saturday, July 26. This will mark the fifth consecutive year that the chorus has performed at this historic oasis of art and culture. For participation information, visit the Registration Information link below.

To Purchase a CD of Beethoven Rocks!

OUR DEVILISHLY EXCITING 2007 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. Take a moment to visualize this wonderful venue above as the riveting final statement of "Freude schöner Götter funken" sparked into the night air. 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 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