WINTER LIGHTS
BACH’S CHRISTMAS ORATORIO, PART V & CANTATA 153
Sunday, January 5 at 4 p.m.
Church of the Redeemer, 5603 N. Charles Street, Baltimore
This concert was part of Bach in Baltimore’s 2018-2019 Season. View the full season in our Archives.
FULL PROGRAM:
Bach’s Christmas Oratorio Part V: Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen
Bach’s Cantata 153: Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind
Albinoni’s Oboe Concerto Opus 9, No. 2
FEATURED SOLOISTS:
Kerry Holahan, Soprano
Janna Critz, Alto
Jeffrey Fahnestock, Tenor
Ross Tamaccio, Bass
STUDENT VOICE EXCHANGE:
Calvert Hall College High School Choir
The holidays may be over, but that doesn’t mean the good cheer needs to end. Enjoy a festive concert including the exuberant Bach Christmas Oratorio Part V: Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen, and passionate Bach Cantata 153: Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind¸ a striking cantata that opens with a lively four-part chorale. We conclude the afternoon celebration of music with neo-Baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni’s innovative Oboe Concerto Opus 9, No. 2, considered the first Italian work for the oboe, an emerging instrument in the early eighteenth century.
Tickets: $25 Regular / $27 Door
Kerry Holahan, soprano
Kerry Holahan, soprano, is a solo and ensemble singer acclaimed for her versatility and interpretation of Historically Informed music, especially of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. She has appeared as soloist with American Bach Soloists in San Francisco, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and recently debuted with Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire at the Aspen Music Festival, as well as the 21st Century Consort and the Folger Consort in Washington, D.C. Kerry is a staff singer at St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square and regularly appears with the Washington National Cathedral Choir. Prior to coming to the DMV, Kerry lived in Beijing for eight years where she toured with Chinese and international music ensembles and coordinated cross-cultural initiatives with Chinese and US arts organizations. While in China, she appeared as soloist with world-renowned Early Music soprano Dame Emma Kirkby and Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone Shenyang. Kerry is fluent in Mandarin and is one of the few American sopranos to be actively singing Chinese traditional and contemporary works both in the United States and China. Kerry earned a BA in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University; a Master of Music, Early Music Vocal Performance from the Peabody Conservatory; as well as a Vocal Performance Diploma, with Distinction, from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, UK.
Janna Critz, alto
Janna Critz, mezzo soprana, is a rising artist in the early music, operatic, and concert arena, and is acclaimed for having “summoned up sonorities that were rich, warm, dark, and comforting” (San Francisco Examiner) and for her “elegance of technique” and “vivid vocalism” (Baltimore Sun). Miss Critz appears regularly as a soloist with groups like Mountainside Baroque, performing works like Beggar’s Opera, the Vivaldi Magnificat, and Dido and Aeneas. She also appears with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem and was the winner of The Biannual Bethlehem Bach Vocal Competition in 2014. In 2015, Critz was one of four recipients of the Virginia Best Adams Fellowship with the Carmel Bach Festival, and a joint recipient of the 2015 American Prize in Chamber Music with vocal ensemble, New Consort. Critz holds a double master’s degree in early music and vocal performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music.
Jeffrey Fahnestock, tenor
Tenor Jeffrey Fahnestock has performed a wide range of repertoire across the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan. He sings a variety of oratorio literature for lyric tenor, including Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s Creation, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, Britten’s Saint Nicolas, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, and J.S.Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Johannespassion, Matthäuspassion, and the cantatas. Fahnestock has appeared as a soloist with the Washington Bach Consort, Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, Baltimore Choral Arts Society, the Folger Consort, Rochester Bach Festival, and Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, among many others. As an operatic soloist, Mr. Fahnestock has performed works by Mozart, Britten, Ravel, Cavalli, Bononcini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Massenet in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Rochester, Washington, and at the Aspen Music Festival.
Mr. Fahnestock is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and The Peabody Institute. He was awarded Fellowships for the study of art song and opera at the Tanglewood Music Center, Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, and Kent/Blossom Music Festival. In addition, Fahnestock studied for two summers at the Aspen Music School and Festival.
Currently on the faculties at Susquehanna University and Gettysburg College, Mr. Fahnestock teaches applied voice, vocal literature and lyric diction. He is also the co-director of Susquehanna University’s GO-Japan (Global Opportunities) Program, a chamber music residency at Niigata University and travel to Sado Island and Tokyo. Fahnestock taught previously at Dickinson College and Bryn Mawr Conservatory. He has recorded for Albany and Guild, and been a featured soloist on radio and television broadcasts in the United States.
Ross Tamaccio, baritone
Ross Tamaccio, baritone, is a native of Herndon, Virginia. During his graduate studies at Peabody with Dr. Stanley Cornett, he performed Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno in the outreach program of The Magic Flute, and most recently Manfred in the east coast premiere of Jake Heggie’s Out of Darkness: Two Remain. As an oratorio soloist, he has been featured in Handel’s Messiah with the Frederick Chorale, and Brahms’s Requiem with Maryland Choral Society. Additionally Ross has performed in Bach’s B Minor Mass and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. As a highly sought-after professional chorister, Ross has also sung with the Basilica of the National Shrine Choir in Washington, the National Symphony, and The Thirteen Choir.