Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
May 27, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE through 5-27-07
Contact:   Vanessa Rose, (212) 581-5933     vrose@nyys.org

CONDUCTOR PAUL HAAS CONCLUDES FIVE-YEAR TENURE WITH “MATTHEW SAYS,” A UNIQUE SETTING OF BACH CHORALES.

Carnegie Hall Concert Includes Première of Visconti Work for Chorus and Orchestra, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 9.

Symphony Singers Makes Carnegie Hall Début at Performance on Sunday, May 27, 2007, at 2pm.

For his farewell performance as music director, Paul Haas conducts the award-winning New York Youth Symphony in Matthew Says, his own arrangement of chorales from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Symphony Singers, the New York Youth Symphony’s new choral program, joins the orchestra for the chorales and Some Day the Sun Won’t Shine, a commissioned work by composer Dan Visconti. Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 9 closes the performance and the orchestra’s 44th season on Sunday, May 27, 2007, at 2pm at Carnegie Hall.

Matthew Says is a collection of chorales drawn from both Bach’s and Telemann’s St. Matthew Passion. Paul Haas has abstractly fused the two pieces through their shared melodies and chords. Performed without pause, the music is additionally enhanced by musicians placed antiphonally around the hall, immersing the audience in sound. The members of Symphony Singers will be joined by choristers from throughout the city.

Conductor Paul Haas concludes his fifth and final season with this performance as the 14th music director of the New York Youth Symphony. In addition to serving as the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s assistant conductor, Mr. Haas has led performances of the National Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, and Fort Worth Symphony, among others. He continues his work with Sympho, an expanding new organization that is an outgrowth of his successful Rewind concert of June 2006.

Dan Visconti is the 69th composer of First Music, the New York Youth Symphony’s orchestral commissioning program. Recent commissions include works for the Kronos Quartet, Antares, and the Corigliano Quartet. He studied composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Yale School of Music. Mr. Visconti’s compositions have been honored with awards from BMI, ASCAP, and NACUSA. In addition to grants from the American Music Center and the Barlow Endowment, he has been the recipient of artist fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Villa Montalvo, and Copland House.

Evan Wels, Symphony Singers' first music director, has worked extensively with young singers as a choral conductor and educator, most notably as director of New Haven's highly acclaimed Elm City Girls' Choir and in his current position teaching music and directing the choirs at New York's Spence School.

The New York Youth Symphony is the most awarded youth program of its kind in the nation, recognized regularly for its innovative educational programs for talented young musicians. Founded in 1963 as an orchestra to showcase the tri-state area’s most gifted musicians, ages 12 to 22, its activities have since grown to encompass programs in chamber music, conducting, composition, jazz, and chorus.

Tickets range from $7 to $55 and are available online at www.carnegiehall.org, by phone at (212) 581-5933, or by visiting the Carnegie Hall box office. For group tickets, and other information, please call (212) 581-5933 or go to www.nyyouthsymphony.org.