Dec 11 Monday
Enjoy harpist Rachel Lee O’Brien perform a “Winter Fantasy” virtual concert featuring works by Tchaikovsky, Bach, Salzedo, and more, while explaining how the harp is played. Watch when you like and pay what you wish.
Known for her “musical artistry” (Classical Post), Rachel won the 2019 Gold Medal at the Houston Symphony’s Ima Hogg Competition, Astral Artists’ 2017 National Auditions, the 2013 Lyon & Healy Award, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition, among others. She has soloed with the Houston Symphony and members of The Philadelphia and National Repertory Orchestras and performed with the Cleveland and Akron, and Roanoke Symphony Orchestras. Passionate about introducing the harp and classical music to new audiences, she regularly performs in non-traditional spaces such as marketplaces and mountain overlooks, often celebrating her Appalachian heritage. She maintains a significant following on social media, teaches privately, and is on the faculty of Hollins University. She earned a Bachelor and Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied under Yolanda Kondonassis.
Dec 12 Tuesday
Dec 13 Wednesday
Morven’s annual winter exhibition has become a must-see Princeton holiday tradition. Visitors enjoy the museum’s elegant galleries, mantels, and porches artfully decorated for the holidays by local businesses, garden clubs, and non-profit organizations.
Join Dr. Ruth Ochs and the Westminster Community Orchestra for their annual family holiday concert on Wednesday, December 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Hillman Hall, in the Marian Buckelew Cullen Center on the Westminster Campus, 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton. Audience members requiring seating assistance should arrive at 7:00 p.m. Free-will cash donations to benefit area food pantries will be accepted.
The free performance will feature holiday favorites such as Berlin’s “White Christmas,” Chase’s Around the World at Holiday Time, and “The Holly and the Ivy.” Westminster Conservatory faculty member Danielle Sinclair will join the orchestra for Yon’s Gesù Bambino. The concert will also include Nikolai’s Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as orchestra member Beth Gaynor LaPat’s Chanukah Songs. The audience is invited to sing-along with Anderson’s popular A Christmas Festival.
No tickets are required for the free hour-long program. For more information call 609-921-7104 or visit https://www.rider.edu/about/events/westminster-community-orchestra-holiday-favorites-and-sing-along.
Dec 14 Thursday
GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein will be the featured soloist with Chamber Orchestra of New York conducted by Salvatore Di Vittorio, in a concert presented by Chamber Orchestra of New York at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Dinnerstein will be the featured soloist in a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467. The concert program will also include Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Suite by John Williams, and the world premiere of Salvatore Di Vittorio's Suite Verdiana - a transcription of five of Verdi's favorite operas.
Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford leads the American Classical Orchestra (ACO) in its second of four Manhattan performances this season with a special holiday program featuring members of the ACO Chorus on Thursday, December 14 at 7 PM at Corpus Christi Church. The concert offers a selection of Italian works including the rediscovery of Antonio Bencini’s mislaid Christmas oratorio Gesù Nato from the shelves of the Vatican archives, as well as the retrieval of Antonio Gianettini’s Magnificat and five psalm settings. The program will begin with a brief presentation by Thomas Crawford describing the works and offering orchestral excerpts.
Featured soloists are Canadian soprano Linda Tsatsanis, hailed as "ravishing" (The New York Times) for her performance at the Boston Early Music Festival; mezzo-soprano and CBC and Naxos recording artist Kate Maroney, a voice and vocal pedagogy teacher at both Mannes School of Music and Yale University who appears this season in David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of MetLiveArts; and tenor Alex Guerrero, praised by The New York Times for his "apt comic timing" in the role of Ali in André Gretry's Zémire et Azor with the ACO, and a featured singer in many the orchestra's performances.
Thomas Crawford will next lead the ACO in a performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor with the ACO Chorus on March 7, 2024, at Alice Tully Hall.
Gesù Nato, A Christmas OratorioThursday, December 14, 2023, 7 pm at Corpus Christi Church, W. 121 St. between Broadway & AmsterdamAmerican Classical OrchestraThomas Crawford, conductorLinda Tsatsanis, sopranoKate Maroney, mezzo-sopranoAlex Guerrero, tenorMembers of the ACO ChorusAntonio Gianettini: Five Psalms (Deus in adjutorium, Dixit Dominus, Confitebor tibi Domine, Beatus vir, and Laudate Pueri Dominum)Antonio Gianettini: Magnificat Antonio Bencini: Gesù Nato
Dec 15 Friday
Nicholas McGegan conductor Sherezade Panthaki sopranoKey’mon W. Murrah countertenorThomas Cooley tenorTyler Duncan baritoneMontclair State University Singers | Heather J. Buchanan, directorNew Jersey Symphony
Join us as the Symphony performs this great holiday tradition! Nicholas McGegan will conduct Handel’s incomparable classic Messiah. Joining McGegan and the musicians will be the talented singers of Montclair State University, who will delight audiences as they sing the glorious “Hallelujah Chorus.”
Dec 16 Saturday