The dramatic choral and orchestral composition with text by Walt Whitman will be performed at Naugatuck Valley Community College Fine Arts Center on Sunday, June 3, at 3 pm. Eric Dale Knapp will conduct a 160-voice chorus from the Connecticut and New Jersey Choral Societies and a 51-piece orchestra at this concert.    

Having a voice described by the San Francisco Chronicle for its “effortless precision and tonal luster,” Miss Rivera is well on her way to being one of the most outstanding and inspired vocal artists today. She sang with Boston Symphony in April as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; she has performed and recorded the works of contemporary composers including John Adams and Osvaldo Golijov; and she has worked with conductors Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

 Miss Rivera is established in the United States and abroad for her role as Kitty Oppenheimer in John Adams’ opera Dr Atomic in Chicago, Atlanta and New York. In the newest Adams opera, A Flowering Tree, she sang the role of Kumudha in performances in Vienna and Berlin.

Baritone Mark Womack will sing in three movements of A Sea Symphony. Opera News acclaimed his singing as “strikingly warm and gracefully honey-toned.”  He has had leading roles in operas throughout the country. On the concert stage he has performed at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. He has appeared in pop concerts with numerous orchestras, including Toronto, Seattle, Portland and New Haven.

To inspire and prepare the audience for Walt Whitman’s text in “A Sea Symphony,” a special exhibit of maritime-themed paintings will also be on view Sunday afternoon. “Visions of the Sea,” an exhibit of seascapes painted by Joanne Conant of Newtown and Ira Barkoff of West Cornwall,  and Joanne Conant, Newtown, CT will display their maritime paintings. 

Ira Barkoff has exhibited his work in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. He has written that: “Looking at landscape painting can have the function of putting oneself into another world, another moment.  Just as music transports, so do visual images.”

Joanne Conant, known not only for her oil painting but also for her enamels, has said of her art: “Water is constantly moving.  I hope to capture a moment in time that will express the emotional bond I have with the view.” Her work has been on exhibit at the Southbury Library and Connecticut galleries.

To further prepare the audience for their musical experience, a pre-concert talk describing  Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony will take place at 2 pm. Doors  will open  for the art exhibit at 1 pm at the Naugatuck Valley Community College Fine Arts Center, 770 Chase Parkway.

Tickets can be purchased online at CTChoralSociety.org. Tickets are $25, $15 for ages 18 and under are $15, and all seats are reserved.