The American Classical Orchestra ascended to the stage before a packed house in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Under the baton of conductor Thomas Crawford, the concert began with Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture (1829). Marvelously performed by the ACO, this work resides in the canon of intensely popular music. It was received by the audience akin to the intense adulation witnessed at its performance at the Paris Opéra in 1929.
The The ACO presents Healing Bach featured sopranos Sherezade Panthaki and Corrine Byrne, mezzo-soprano Sylvia Leith, countertenor Daniel Moody, tenors Brian Giebler and Lawrence Jones, and bass-baritones Edmund Milly and Joseph Parrish. This astounding coterie of gifted musicians presented continuously breathtakingly beautiful and inspired performances.
The performance of Mozart’s Requiem, K526, was glorious and ecstatic. The sui generis admixture of rich sounds from soloists, chorus, and orchestra was superb. At the same time, the sumptuous luminosity of the famed Lacrimosa was almost more than an emotive listener could process without soulful introspection.
American Classical Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall with period instruments expressed the music’s affektenlehre, mysticism, reverence, and beauty
Henry Purcell’s inventive Chaconne opened the program, performed with superb musicianship by the ACO’s performers, thereby setting the standard of sublime artistry to follow, beautifully filmed, recorded, and produced in the magnificent Harlem Parish setting. How delightful to hear, see and experience representative 17th-century works performed on period instruments. The imaginatively engaged listener propelled by their suspension of belief is anachronistically transported into a magical musical experience.