UM’s University Singers perform at Carnegie Hall

ORONO – The University of Maine’s University Singers and four other choruses, united under the direction of Dennis Cox, nationally known conductor and professor of music at UMaine, performed before a full house at New York City’s Carnegie Hall on June 2.

The choruses were accompanied by the New England Symphonic Ensemble and four professional singers. Their rendition of Joseph Haydn’s Lord Nelson mass (Missa in angustiis in D minor, H.22, No. 11) earned a standing ovation.

“Carnegie Hall is one of the major cultural centers in the United States,” Cox said. “Every important artist in the Western world and beyond has performed there. This is something the students will never forget. It was the chance to perform with an excellent orchestra and hear professional soloists in a world class venue in a world class city.”

Cox recently received a letter of congratulations for the concert from Peter Tiboris, the general director and music director for Mid America Productions at Carnegie Hall.

“He said the performance was stunning,” Cox says. “Everything came together for us beautifully.”

Cox, who has conducted in 26 states, Canada and Europe, was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall through its choral residency program. Cox combined the University Singers, for which he serves as a conductor, with the Spring Hill (Kansas) High School Chorus, the York (Maine) High School Chamber Singers, Christ Church Choir of New Brunswick, N.J., and the Choral Arts Society of Westchester, N.Y.

There were a total of 175 singers, including 32 University Singers and two UMaine alumni.

Cox and the University Singers also participated in the choral residency program in 1998.

The University Singers are UMaine’s select concert choir. They perform regularly with the University of Maine Oratorio Society and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and tour the Northeastern United States every spring and abroad every four years.

The concert consisted of three parts, opening with Antonio Vivaldi under the direction of Stanley Wicks. It was followed by Haydn’s “Missa Sancti Nicolai” and “Te Deum,” directed by David Stutzenberger. After intermission, Cox’s choruses concluded the show with the Lord Nelson mass.

The choral residency program also included a dinner boat tour in New York Harbor.

The Lord Nelson mass, which premiered in 1798, acquired its nickname after an anonymous journalist wrote, sometime around 1800, “When I told the composer of the glorious effect of the trumpet blasts in the Benedictus, he learned from Prince Esterhazy that a courier had arrived with the news that Nelson had defeated the French. From that moment on, he could not get the image of a trumpeting courier out of his mind, where it was so entangled with the Benedictus that he added the obbligato trumpets.”