16 Students Will Perform in Golijov’s ‘St. Mark Passion’ at ‘Mostly Mozart Festival’

World-renowned composer Osvaldo Golijov, Loyola professor of music at the College of the Holy Cross, will serve as first composer-in-residence for Lincoln Center’s 2007 Mostly Mozart Festival. On August 18, under Goljiov’s auspices, 16 Holy Cross students will be first “outside” singers ever to join conductor Maria Guinand’s acclaimed Schola Cantorum de Caracas in performing Golijov’s St. Mark Passion. Schola Cantorum is the only chorus in the world that has performed the monumental work.

The Holy Cross students are all members of the College Choir and were specially selected for this performance. (They are: Emily Burdick '09, Kassie Chapel '09, Sarah D'Angelo '07, Rob Denien '08, Amanda D'Onofrio '08, Mike Ferraguto '09, Maureen Gassert '07, Sara Greene '09, Abbey Jones '07, Caitrin Perry '07, Catherine Provenzano '07, Thomas Raines '10, Fran Rogers '08, Kate Schmieg '09, Stephen Smith '10, and Kris Zelesky '10.)

In addition to St. Mark Passion, Golijov’s music will be featured on opening night and during the closing week of the Festival. Golijov has been working closely with artistic director Jane Moss, music director Louis Langree, and their team to curate a series of concerts that will examine new paths of understanding and points of comparison between Mozart’s world and today.

The Mostly Mozart Festival is a New York institution and includes works by Mozart, his predecessors, contemporaries, and related successors. In addition to concerts by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Mostly Mozart includes concerts by visiting period-instrument ensembles, chamber orchestras and ensembles, and acclaimed soloists, as well as staged music presentations, opera productions, dance, and film.

In addition to St. Mark Passion, Golijov’s works — known for blending influences from many musical traditions to reflect the multicultural modern world — include the opera Ainadamar, song cycles (notably a set of folksongs titled Ayre), chamber music, and film scores. Earlier this year, Golijov won two Grammy awards for Ainadamar in the categories of Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Contemporary Composition. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named Musical America’s 2006 Composer of the Year.

In January and February 2006, Lincoln Center presented a festival called “The Passion of Osvaldo Golijov.” His music is performed around the world, including, in recent seasons, at Washington’s Kennedy Center, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Paris’ Theatre de la Ville, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and major festivals in America and Europe. He has been commissioned by orchestras and music festivals internationally to compose new work, and is the recipient of grants from, among others, the Guggenheim Foundation, Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1991, Golijov has a strong commitment to both his students and the College’s mission. “Teaching at Holy Cross is an amazing experience,” he said in one interview, “because it has led me to discover Christianity in a completely different way than I experienced it as a Jewish minority growing up in Argentina.” In the fall of 2005, he was instrumental in bringing soprano Dawn Upshaw (for whom he has written many works) and Venezuelan conductor Guinand to work with music students and perform with the College Choir a concert of sacred Latin American music.

For more information on the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Golijov’s contributions, visit: http://www.lincolncenter.org/press_release/PR_MMF07_Release_FINAL_LOGO.pdf.

Related Information:

* www.osvaldogolijov.com/ * Lincoln Center