Fall 2024 Season Announcement

Syracuse Chorale begins the 2024 season on September 17th, 2024 at Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church.  You can click here to register to sing with us this season. We are always looking for new members!  

Here is our Artistic Director, Dr. Sean Linfors, with more information on the exciting Fall season repertoire:



Syracuse Chorale is proud to present a concert entitled “To Dwell Together,” with choral music drawn from composers both contemporary and canonical.  Our concert centers on Chichester Psalms, Bernstein’s beloved work for small orchestra, choir, and treble soloist.  Leonard Bernstein composed the three-movement Chichester Psalms in 1965, choosing excerpts of four different Psalms to set for choir and orchestra.  Though commissioned by an Anglican cathedral, he used the original Hebrew texts of these Psalms, focusing on the universality and “ecumenicality” of the message.  As a Jewish composer, his identity and status in the classical music world lend layers of meaning to this composition.  His complex and beautiful work concludes with the section of Psalm 133: "How good . . . it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."  We take this as our theme for this concert, for the inspiration it provided Bernstein, and for its relevance in our world today.  We’ll perform Bernstein's arrangement for organ, harp, and percussion.
Bobby McFerrin’s setting of the 23rd Psalm and Eric Whitacre’s meditative This Marriage, on text by the poet Rumi, feature beautiful unaccompanied choral singing, rich with the colors of these composers’ harmonic language.  These pieces speak to the idea of unity, acceptance, and inclusion - as Rumi states: “May this marriage be a sign of compassion.”
Felix Mendelssohn, like Bernstein, was a Jewish composer who wrote music for Christian audiences, and as in the case of the oratorio Elijah, used stories drawn from the shared history of these faiths.  He Watching over Israel refers to the protection God offers to his people who are dwelling in safety under his watch.
Our concert concludes with Allan Naplan’s joyful setting of Hine Ma Tov, It is good and pleasant when God's people live together in peace! The audience itself becomes part of the message, as this work engages all to sing the hopeful refrain.