NYAJoe’s will donate to NCS 15% of all food purchases made by supporters of the Newburyport Choral Society. You can identify yourself as an NCS supporter by printing the NYAJ Certificate February 2012 from this website and handing it to the staff at Joe’s, or simply by saying that you are  “Here to support the Newburyport Choral Society” when you are seated. You can also support us through NYA Joe’s Takeout service, which includes their full menu. Either way, we hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to enjoy some great food while helping to support the Newburyport Choral Society.

Thank you for your support, and we hope to see you there.

May 5-6, 2012 The Newburyport Choral Society brings the much loved  Brahms’  Requiem to the community. This promises to be a spectacular event that is as much a pleasure for the chorus as it is for the audience. This beautiful piece promises to be memorable long after the concert on May 5-6, 2012 has ended.

Johannes Brahms: Requiem, Opus 45

Completed in 1868 when he was 35 years old, this work established Brahms’ reputation as a composer and is one of his greatest works.  Brahms may have had his friend Robert Schumann in mind when he began the Requiem, but he surely was thinking of his own mother, who died in 1865, by the time he finished the work. It is interesting to note that two greatest sorrows of his life up to that time, his master and friend Schumann, and his mother, are both here memorialized. Unlike liturgical requiems, Brahms’ German Requiem offers no prayers for the dead, takes its text directly from the Bible, and is sung in the vernacular, in this instance, English, not Latin.

The text, selected and organized by Brahms himself, speaks solely to the living, to those who mourn. Brahms expressed his willingness, on one occasion, to change the title to “A Human Requiem,” but he held firm that the words should not reflect any orthodoxy, but his understanding, his own personal theology.

Musically, we have a very specialized cycle of accompanied part-songs. The movements follow the form of their texts, just as his songs do. In this case, however, because of the scale of the composition, what might be small touches in a part-song become magnificent  large gestures. Think of the grim funeral process, which opens Movement II, or the glowing conclusion to that same movement! The great fugue, which closes Movement VI is the perfect counterpoint to the uneasy mystery with which it begins. And finally, the last chorus takes its theme from a motive heard in the first chorus. Even further, Brahms finally quotes, in the last chorus, the music, which ended the first chorus, bringing the work full circle in such a way that those who find comfort (Movement I) share the same music with those, finally, who die in the Lord.

Each concert season, NCS attracts more than 100 members from nearly forty communities in eastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire. Our choral members range from high school to retirees, so please consider this opportunity for both you and your family and friends. Singing classical masterpieces provides a weekly vocal workout and music history lesson under one of the premiere choral conductors of our time, Dr. Gerald Weale, Professor Emeritus of Music at Boston University. Singing is also an aerobic activity. Along with the physical benefits, the experience of singing in a group helps provide balance to life in our fast paced digital age.

Rehearsals are Monday evenings at the Rupert A. Nock Middle School in Newburyport from 7:30-10:00.

Registration is held on the first three Mondays of September and January from 6:30-7:30 pm before rehearsal.

We wish you a joyous and prosperous New Year.

Newburyport Choral Society and Belleville Congregational Church have a long history of collaboration in bringing music to our community. NCS has had the pleasure of singing in the beautiful meeting hall for decades with its wonderful acoustics, simple elegant architecture and traditional New England ambience.  We wanted to share with you a little of the history of the church that we have come to appreciate.

The church had its beginnings in June of 1761 in Newbury, MA but was not named Belleville Congregational Church until 1851. During the church’s 250 years it has been destroyed repeatedly by storm and fire.  Each time the Meeting Hall has been rebuilt by a dedicated congregation.

The church bell also had an interesting journey through the years, which is as much a part of the rich history of our community as it is of the church itself. On October 14, 1839, a bell was left on the steps of the Belleville Church Meeting-house with a letter:

“Know all men, to whom these presents shall come.

I was born in the year—-, in London, England, was soon after transported to this country and presented to Queen Anne’s Chapel in Newbury, state of Massachusetts, (as my label shows) by the lord bishop of London. After remaining quietly in the belfry of said chapel for many years I was taken by force and secretly buried. After the lapse of a few years I reappeared and was placed in the belfry of a schoolhouse in this vicinity. Soon after I was taken down and placed in the belfry of this church, where I called together the congregation for many years — but in the year 1838 I was taken down to make room for a larger personage — in a few moments after reaching the ground I was stolen — by whom no one knows —and placed in the belfry of the same school house now in another street, where I remained until last Saturday evening when I received a call from some friends, which I gladly accepted, and have treated me so well and placed me where you now find me.

Restore me to my lawful owners or beware!”

For a more detailed  history go to Belleville Congregational Church.