Frank Nemhauser Previews the BCI Singing Week in Amsterdam
AMSTERDAM | JULY 19-26, 2020 | MUZIEKGEBOUW
BCI Music Director Frank Nemhauser talks about the BCI singing week in Amsterdam at which Joe Miller conducts music by Felix Mendelssohn and Dan Forrest at the Muziekgebouw.
“This week marks Joe Miller’s second appearance with BCI. Joe is one of the great teaching conductors whom I’ve come across. He has wonderful and inventive ways of getting results from his choruses. He is director of Choral Activities at Westminster Choir College. Through his work there, he has prepared choruses for the world’s great conductors - both with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.
“Since many of our choristers return year after year – and we are very grateful for that – it’s important to keep bringing in new repertoire that might interest, inspire and challenge our singers, as well as those who are new to BCI. That was on our minds when planning the Amsterdam week. Dan Forrest’s Requiem For the Living, with its powerful text and message, has become one of the most popular contemporary choral works in the United States. Dan’s requiem makes a very strong statement: it is a piece not for those who died, but for those who survived. We all have experienced loss, and there’s a lot to be said for the sharing of one’s story; that can be very healing. I wanted to pair it with Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht, which has not been performed by BCI for 25 years. The Mendelssohn is a lot of fun for the chorus; it’s full of witches and goblins and all sorts of wonderful pagan rituals.
“The Muziekgebouw is a new concert hall. It’s only 15 years old and has become one of the major concert halls in Amsterdam. It’s known for contemporary music, but not exclusively. I think people will very much enjoy the experience.
“Rehearsals and classes take place at the hotel where we will be staying – the Barbizon Palace Hotel in Amsterdam. It’s about a two-minute walk from the Central Train Station in downtown Amsterdam.”