Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem”
New Haven presentation of the anti-war masterpiece follows performance in Boston’s Symphony Hall

Nearly four hundred musicians and singers will take the stage of Woolsey Hall on Saturday, April 28 at 8 pm when the Yale School of Music, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and Yale Glee Club present one of the greatest works ever written for orchestra and chorus: Benjamin Britten’s astonishing yet rarely-heard War Requiem. Shinik Hahm, music director of the Philharmonia Orchestra sof Yale, the graduate orchestra of the Yale School of Music, will conduct the performance. The anti-war masterpiece interweaves the Latin Requiem with grim poetry from the trenches of World War I, written by Wilfred Owen, who was killed a week before armistice. Originally written for the re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral after its destruction by bombs in World War II, this massive work remains a powerful testament to the horrors of war. Soloists in the Britten War Requiem are soprano Sara Jakubiak, a young artist in the Yale Opera program, tenor James Taylor, professor of voice, and Detlef Roth, the renowned German baritone. The Philharmonia and soloists will be joined by the Yale Schola Cantorum, directed by Simon Carrington, and Yale Camerata, directed by Marguerite Brooks, from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, the Yale Glee Club, directed by Jeffrey Douma, and two New Haven children’s choirs, the Trinity Church Boys and Girls Choirs directed by R. Walden Moore, and the Elm City Girls’ Choir, directed by Rebecca Rosenbaum. The night before, on April 27, the performers will present the work in Boston’s famed Symphony Hall.

Also on the New Haven program will be Toru Takemitsu’s From Me Flows What You Call Time, featuring the Philharmonia with members of the Yale Percussion Group. There will be a preconcert lecture on the Britten War Requiem by noted British scholar and author Merwyn Cooke of the University of Nottingham, U.K., at 7 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall. Admission to both events is free. For further information, call 203 432-4158, or visit www.yale.edu/music.

Shinik Hahm has conducted major orchestras and opera companies in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. He served as music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra from 1995 to 2004, when he was appointed Music Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale. Since 1988, he has been music director of various orchestras including the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, Abilene Philharmonic, and currently is the music director/conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic and the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestras. Among numerous distinctions, he has won the Gregorz Fitelberg International Conducting Competition as well as the Korean Cultural Medal, Korea’s highest civilian honor.

Sara Jakubiak, soprano, has performed numerous leading roles with Yale Opera, and has appeared at James Taylor is one of the most sought-after oratorio singers of his generation, appearing worldwide with such renowned conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Herbert Blomstedt, Franz Welser-Möst, and touring extensively with Helmuth Rilling. Baritone Detlef Roth's career was jumpstarted when he won the Belvedere voice competition in Vienna as well as several additional prizes. At the first "Concours des Voix Wagneriennes" in Strasbourg, he won both First Place and Audience Prizes. As highly sought-after baritone he performs his extensive repertoire on both opera and concert stages world wide. In spring 2006 he sang Wagner's Rheingold at the Washington National Opera. This season he gave his La Scala debut with Maestro Gatti in Lohengrin followed by Rheingold with Sir Simon Rattle at the 2007 Salzburg Easter Festival. Future projects include Mozart's Magic Flute in Toulouse, France, and Le nozzi di Figaro in Tokyo.

The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale is the largest performing group at the Yale School of Music, offering superb training in orchestral playing and repertoire to its members, many of who have gone on to join the ranks of the nation’s leading professional orchestras. They have performed numerous times in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and participated twice in the prestigious Evian, France, music festival. Founded in 1985, the Yale Camerata is a vocal ensemble sponsored by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. The group’s approximately sixty singers are Yale graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, staff, and singers from the New Haven community. The Camerata performs a widely varied spectrum of choral literature, with a special commitment to choral music of our time. Yale Schola Cantorum is a twenty-four-voice specialist chamber choir, including undergraduates and graduates, supported by the Institute of Sacred Music with the Yale School of Music. The choir’s repertoire concentrates on music before 1750 and from the last one hundred years. In addition to performing regularly on the Yale campus and farther afield, the choir records and tours nationally and internationally. From its earliest days as a group of thirteen men from the Class of 1863 to its current incarnation as an eighty-voice chorus of women and men, the Yale Glee Club has represented the best in collegiate singing for nearly a century and a half. One of the most traveled choruses in the world, the club’s repertoire embraces a broad spectrum of choral music from the 16th century to the present. Based in New Haven, The Elm City Girls’ Choir has received national recognition, and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney World, and on CBS Television. The Trinity Church Boys Choir has sung services and concerts throughout the eastern United States, including a reception hosted by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Trinity Church Girls Choir singers are in grades 5 through 10 and form the soprano section of the choir of Men and Girls, established in 2003.

For Calendar Editors:
Saturday, April 28, 2007 at 8 pm in Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven(Preconcert lecture at 7 pm, Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall)Yale School of Music, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and Yale Glee Club present
BENJAMIN BRITTEN’S “WAR REQUIEM”

Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale, Shinik Hahm, conductor. Soprano Sara Jakubiak, tenor James Taylor, bartione Detlef Roth. Yale Schola Cantorum, Yale Camerata, Yale Glee Club, Trinity Church Boys and Girls Choirs, Elm City Girls’ Choir. Preconcert lecture by Merwyn Cooke, University of Nottingham, UK, at 7:00 pm, Sprague Hall. Admission to both events is free. Information: www.yale.edu/music, 203-432-4158