Academy of Sacred Drama

Sunday, January 13, 2019, 4 p.m.
Corpus Christi Church

Jeremy Rhizor, director and violin
Three singers and seven instrumentalists

Mosè: La creatione demagistrati

Director Jeremy Rhizor’s mission is to create an enriching and totally original experience for listeners. He combines a 17th-century oratorio, Giovanni Antonio Gianettini’s La creatione de’ magistrati in a modern-day premiere, with an informative lecture at its midpoint, and a reception for the audience after the performance. The oratorio’s text is enlightening: the prophet Moses learns hard lessons about governance.

Mid-concert lecture by Alice Jarrard and post-concert dessert

“At the front, the violinist [Jeremy Rhizor] serves as conductor, marking tempo with knee bends and nods…. The piece is lovely, ornate and contrapuntal. The scene is shadowed and intimate, another quiet moment of excellent New York music-making.”

commonwealmagazine.org

Estimated Run Time: 2 hours and 15 minutes including lecture and one intermission.

Artist Bios and Program

The Academy of Sacred Drama subverts convention by exploring sacred dramatic music as a membership organization rather than a performing ensemble. This approach has enabled unusually ambitious projects such as the production of an open license journal devoted to sacred drama. Last season’s journals helped to develop a richer understanding of the deuterocanonical and Baroque conceptions of Judith for modern readers and audiences. This season’s journal will explore Moses in sacred dramatic music as well as Moses art housed in New York City.

The Academy’s creation of editions and translations of little-known Baroque oratorios and cantatas has enabled the frequent presentation of modern and American premieres of these works paired with lectures and receptions. The Academy’s 2017-2018 Year of Judith featured the modern day premiere of Domenico Freschi’s Giuditta, the American premiere of Antonio Draghi’s Oratorio di Giuditta at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and a program of rarely heard Judith cantatas of the French Baroque. The Academy was featured in that first season in an article in Commonweal Magazine, and its artistic decisions were declared “striking” by the New York Times.

2018-2019 is the Academy’s Year of Moses and features another set of premieres of large-scale musical works. Oratorios by Vincenzo de Grandis and Giovanni Antonio Gianettini will be presented for the first time in more than 300 years. The Academy will also perform the American premiere of an oratorio by Bernardo Pasquini and a program of rarely heard Moses cantatas of the French Baroque. This initial phase of the Academy explores little-known Baroque repertory through a variety of professional collaborations.

In future seasons, the Academy will publish editions of historical sacred dramatic music and translations with open licenses and will expand its research of the repertory as well as its educational activities to medieval sources, modern commissions, and explorations of the place of drama within and outside of Christian liturgies. Starting in 2020, the organization’s artistic process will focus on curated seasons designed to take artistic risks and to challenge commonly held assumptions about music, drama, and society.

Tickets

Individual Tickets
Preferred Center: $50
Center: $42.50
Premium Balcony and Sides: $35
Balcony: $30
Partial View: $15
Balcony Blocked View: $10

Season Subscriptions
Regular Subscription: $180-300
Designer Subscription:$195-310
Mini-Designer Subscription: $105-165

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