The Collegiate Chorale

Carnegie Hall; Tue 1

UPDATE: Since this article was published, Salvatore Licitra withdrew from the performance described here.

It was a choral coup when James Bagwell was appointed the Collegiate Chorale’s new music director: The indefatigable conductor inherits an American legacy begun by Robert Shaw and upheld by the late Robert Bass, whose tenure lasted nearly three decades. Naturally, Bagwell’s debut will mark a new chapter in the chorale’s history—as well as a new chapter for choral music in New York, as the genre edges toward a tipping point of popularity. Bagwell takes the podium on Tuesday 1 with “A Jubilant Song,” a program celebrating both the ensemble’s history and its future.

Standards such as Beethoven’s romantic Choral Fantasy and Gabrieli’s Renaissance masterpiece In eccelsiis are paired with modern-leaning works such as Alexander Kopylov’s Heavenly Light (which was part of the first public program presented by Collegiate in 1942), Bernstein and Lerner’s White House Cantata (given its New York premiere by the chorale in 2008) and an arrangement by Shaw himself (“Set Down Servant”).

Drawing on both Bagwell’s and the Collegiate’s operatic connections, the evening will also feature selections from Verdi’s canon—including La forza del destino, Un ballo in maschera and La Traviata. Leading Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra, who made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Collegiate, will be featured alongside singers such as Emily Pulley, Daniel Mobbs and Kalif Omari Jones. And soprano Erin Morlely, lauded for her performance in Les Huguenots at this year’s Bard SummerScape festival, will also appear to reprise one of the opera’s high-flying arias.—Olivia Giovetti

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