Maestro Eric Dale Knapp To Conduct CCS In Its Spring Concert

WOODBURY — Connecticut Choral Society will be conducted by its associate director, Eric Knapp, for its upcoming spring performance, “A Concert from the Poet’s Quill ~ Poetry in Song.” The concert will be offered on Sunday, April 29, at 3 pm, at North Congregational Church in Woodbury.

With Maestro Knapp and accompaniment by Trio Classique (piano, cello, and violin), CCS will sing a variety of short pieces that set poetry to music.  Included in the concert are a series of poems by Robert Frost, collectively called “Frostiana: Seven Country Songs” by Randall Thompson. Works by Schumann, Brahms, Lauridsen, Whitacre, Clausen and Naplan will be sung with texts by Emily Dickinson, Robert Burns, and Langston Hughes, among others.

Poems will be read by guest poet Claire Zoghb of New Haven. In 1999, Ms Zoghb received an Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.  She was awarded a second Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism (formerly the Connecticut Commission on the Arts) in March 2007.

Maestro Knapp is one of the foremost conductors of his generation and is winning international acclaim with his dynamism, fresh interpretations of musical repertoire, and charismatic leadership of instrumentalists and singers alike. In addition to conducting the Connecticut Choral Society, Mr Knapp is artistic director and conductor of the New Jersey Choral Society and the music director for the Mark Thallander Foundation in Los Angeles.

He is the founder and music director of Orchestra de Camerata and serves as artistic director of Chamber Music at Salisbury House. In July 2006 he was artistic director and conductor of “Voices in the House,” an international music festival featuring organist Frederick Swann at Sydney Opera House. Later this year Mr Knapp will return to Australia as artistic director of the World Voices International Choral Festival and conduct the Voices in the House Festival Orchestra in Sydney. Next year Mr Knapp will lead the Olympic Festival Orchestra and Chorus in a concert of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9.

Tickets for the concert are $20 and may be purchased from Choral Society members; at More Good Books or Woodbury Drug in Woodbury; at Villarina’s Pasta & Foods or Southbury Soap and Candles in Southbury; by calling 203-206-7186; online via the website CTChoralSociety.org; or at the door.

The church is at the corner of Routes 6 and 47.

Founded in Woodbury in 1980, Connecticut Choral Society is committed to providing a music resource for Connecticut, encouraging the singing and performance of choral music of high artistic quality, and stimulating greater appreciation and enjoyment of choral music. The Connecticut Choral Society performs locally several times each year and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, toured internationally, and performed on network television.

CCS is supported in part by funding from the CT Commission on Arts, Tourism, Culture, History, and Film and also from the Nonprofit Assistance Initiative, a joint project of the Connecticut Community Foundation and the United Way of Greater Waterbury, as well as by contributions, grants and underwriting from its loyal supporters and businesses and financial institutions in the region.