Mordents, appoggiaturas, and trills are common in Baroque music. Now ask any member of the choir what they are and you will get a beautiful earful...
For two weeks, the New Amsterdam Boys and Girls Choir hosted Callisto Ascending, a professional Baroque chamber ensemble, for a residency in early November. On, Friday, November 7, both ensembles shared the spotlight in a well-attended concert of parents and supporters.
Artistic Director James Backmon conducted choir members in selections reprised from private events this fall. Callisto Ascending reprised selections that received recent praise in The New York Times. Then both ensembles joined to perform Baroque songs with accompaniment on authentic instruments.The residency workshops were hosted at the Renaissance School of the Arts and the concert was hosted at Esperanza Preparatory Academy, both new middle schools in East Harlem with choirs trained by Mr. Backmon.
The residency and concert were funded in part by a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Callisto Ascending is a chamber music ensemble devoted to the vibrant exploration of the familiar and forgotten chamber music repertoire for period instruments and voices.
This extraordinary paring, a fresh young inner-city children's choir performing with an acclaimed and emerging Baroque chamber ensemble, is exactly what the New Amsterdam Boys and Girls Choir aims to do--expose the choir to new an challenging performance situations and to share their charm and unique perspectives with members of other communities. Uniting around making music together and shared experience the NABGC creates bridges with new segments of our world and society.
To learn more about Callisto Ascending, visit http://www.callistoascending.com/index.html
