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Press Release - September 20, 2006, Boston, MA
Described by a leading Boston music critic as “the youngest important music director in town,” Scott Allen Jarrett conducts the 90-member Back Bay Chorale in a program of richly rewarding choral masterpieces. The 2006-2007 season encompasses music from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, from the old world and the new. According to Jarrett, “The season is an emotional and spiritual journey, bringing together the Chorale with nationally-renowned soloists and musicians.”
The season opens on November 10 with Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, the exquisite and revolutionary setting of the Vespers that secured Monteverdi the position of maestro di cappella at the venerable St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Accompanied by an early instrumental ensemble, the Chorale will perform the piece
in Boston’s most “Venetian” venue—the beautifully restored Old South Church. On December 15 and 17, the Chorale will hold its annual holiday musical celebration. Performing seasonal choral masterpieces and traditional carols, the Chorale will be joined by PALS Children’s Chorus, one of America’s premier treble-voice ensembles. A cornerstone of the 2006-2007 season is the performance of Bach’s colossal St. Matthew Passion on March 24. Music Director Jarrett believes that “the Passion, because of its richness and scope, is one of Bach’s greatest achievements.” The season concludes on May 19, featuring the Chichester Psalms by the prolific Leonard Bernstein.
Along with this diverse musical program, the Back Bay Chorale enters the second year of its Emerging Artists in Residence Program, designed to showcase emerging talented musicians in the Greater Boston area. Through instructional and performance opportunities with the Chorale, the artists will expand their knowledge of choral music performance and artistic leadership and, in turn, lend their expertise to the Chorale. Jarrett has announced the appointment of soprano Teresa Wakim and organist and conductor Justin Blackwell as the artists to be sponsored by the program, which is funded in part by generous donations of its supporters.
In addition to his appointments as Music Director of the Back Bay Chorale, Musical Director and Conductor of the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte, and Director of Music and University Organist and Choirmaster at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel, Scott Allen Jarrett serves as the Assistant Conductor of Choirs at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute where he assists Dr. Ann Howard Jones. Also at Tanglewood, Jarrett teaches advanced music theory and history to the students in the Young Artist Vocal Program.
In Summer 2004, Jarrett was a guest conductor at St. Matthias Cathedral in Budapest and also gave an organ recital there. Later in the summer, he was guest conductor for New Hampshire’s White Mountain Musical Arts Bach Festival..
As a pianist, Mr. Jarrett frequently serves as rehearsal pianist and assistant for Ann Howard Jones. He also accompanied rehearsals for the late Robert Shaw during his Boston visits. As the rehearsal pianist for the Carnegie Hall Choral Workshop, Jarrett played rehearsals for Charles Dutoit. As a baritone, Jarrett has been a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, the Boston Bach Ensemble, and Schola Cantorum of Boston.
The Back Bay Chorale is a 90-member chorus with a diverse membership drawn from communities throughout the Greater Boston area. Performing a repertoire of classical and contemporary choral music, the Back Bay Chorale strives to build community through musicality - fostering connection between choral and audience members.
Since its founding in 1973 by Larry Hill, the Back Bay Chorale has performed over a hundred concerts in such venues as Symphony Hall, Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, Emmanuel Church, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Church of the Covenant, the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade, New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and Providence's Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul. In addition to performances with its past music directors, Larry Hill, Beverly Taylor, Julian Wachner, and James Olesen, the Chorale has appeared with the Boston Pops under John Williams and Keith Lockhart, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra under Gunther Schuller and Gisele Ben-Dor, the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra under David Commanday, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under Gil Rose. The Chorale has also collaborated with the Providence Singers, the Charles Street A.M.E. Church, and the National Center of Afro-American Artists.
The Back Bay Chorale's repertoire spans the full range of choral literature, from the masterworks of the Renaissance, baroque, classical, and modern periods to the most contemporary of compositions. In recent years, the Chorale has premiered several works written especially for it, including Marjorie Merryman's Three Ballads, James Russell Smith's Canto V: The Second Circle, Robert Kyr's Unseen Rain and Passion According to Four Evangelists, and Stephen Paulus's Voices.
The Chorale's discography includes recordings of John Knowles Paine's St. Peter Oratorio with Gunther Schuller conducting; James Yannatos's Trinity Mass with the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, under the direction of the composer; and, with conductor emerita Beverly Taylor, Robert Kyr's Unseen Rain and Passion. New recordings include Benjamin Britten's Company of Heaven, featuring the Chorale under the direction of Julian Wachner (2002), and Lukas Foss's Griffelkin with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.
Full details are available at http://www.bbcboston.org/
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