In addition to the Concert Series, Saint Vincent continues to hold a number of special musical events each year. The Pittsburgh Symphony will appear at Saint Vincent Basilica along with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh on September 21 prior to leaving for its European tour.
2019 |SEPTEMBER
Bruckner Symphony No. 9
Te Deum
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh
Manfred Honeck, music director
5 p.m. Pre-concert reception, Fred Rogers Center
7:30 p.m. Saturday, September 21
Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica
General admission $25 per person | Pre-concert benefit $100 includes
reserved seating | Telephone 724-805-2177 | Tickets
Over the last quarter century, Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world’s leading conductors, renowned for his distinctive interpretations and arrangements of a wide-range of repertoire. For more than a decade, Honeck has served as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, continuing a great legacy of music-making that is celebrated at home, abroad and on recordings, including the 2018 Grammy Award for Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 and Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
Since 2008, Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have served as cultural ambassadors for the city as one of the most frequently toured American orchestras. The PSO and Honeck returned to Lincoln Center in May 2019 and their next European tour takes place in fall 2019. Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony have received critical acclaim and honors from around the world, including the “Best Orchestral Performance” Grammy Award in 2018, along with two other Grammy nominations. Honeck has conceived of and conducted several large-scale or operatic works as semi-staged productions for the concert hall, including Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, and later this season in Pittsburgh he will lead performances of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust.
Critically acclaimed as one of the finest choruses in the country, the 110-year-old Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh (MCP) is re-inventing choral music for the 21st century. MCP singers are community members from diverse backgrounds and professions who give generously of their time and talent to create powerful, unexpected, and deeply moving moments of musical discovery. Now in its third season under Music Director Matthew Mehaffey, the MCP has also been celebrated for its exciting and innovating programming, such as the 2018 world premiere of The Times They Are A-Changin’: The Words and Music of Bob Dylan by composer/conductor Steve Hackman. Other MCP commissions and premieres include works by Ned Rorem, Nancy Galbraith, and Derek Bermel.
2019 | DECEMBER
Handel’s Messiah
Thomas Octave, conductor
Saint Vincent College Singers and Festival Choir
7 p.m. Saturday, December 7
Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica
Telephone 724-805-2177 |
Tickets: $15 | Pre-concert Benefit: $75 includes reserved seating
Saint Vincent Family Christmas Concert
Thomas Octave, conductor
7 p.m. Saturday, December 14
Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica
Telephone 724-805-2177 |
Tickets: $15 |
Thomas Octave is associate professor of music at Saint Vincent College. He has degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University. As a conductor, he is frequently seen presenting a multitude of varied genres of music including operas and musicals. He has collaborated with jazz legend Joe Negri in performances of “Mass of Hope,” The River City Brass Band, Highmark’s “The Caring Place” and renowned choreographer Maria Caruso. A champion of new music, Octave has premiered several major works by composer Nancy Galbraith, including her “O Magnum Mysterium,” “God of Justice,” “Novena” and “Lumen Christi.” He conducts the Saint Vincent College Singers and teaches courses in voice, music appreciation and opera. He is also the musical consultant to the archabbot. He is the music director of the Westmoreland Choral Society and the director of sacred music for the Diocese of Greensburg. For tickets visit this link.
2020 | JANUARY
Mark Schultz Concert
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 21
Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica
Telephone 724-805-2177 |
Tickets: $20 | Non-SVC students $10 with ID | Tickets
As a new contemporary Christian artist Mark Schultz sold more than a million albums. In the past two decades he has created ten more albums and had more ethan ten top singles. Schultz has landed the top spot on Billboard’s Christian Adult Contemporary Songwriter list and has been featured on 48 Hours, CNN and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2011, he released his first instrumental album, Renaissance and his first novella, Letters From War, based on his hit song. His 2005 release, Mark Schultz Live: A Night of Stories & Songs, was certified Platinum by the R.I.A.A. and earned Schultz his first GMA Dove Award.
When he was about eight years old, Schultz began to teach himself piano by ear. He sang in musicals and with his friends in a band and was also very involved in athletics. Graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in marketing from Kansas State University, he drove to Nashville to try to make it in the music industry. He began writing songs for the youth at First Presbyterian Church and their families. He wrote personal songs of people’s struggles as well as songs for certain church events. The members of the church and specifically the mothers of the youth group helped Schultz organize a concert at the Ryman auditorium, which garnered a record deal for him.
Other albums include Song Cinema, Stories & Songs, Broken & Beautiful, Come Alive, Renaissance, All Things Possible, Hymns, Before You Call Me Home, Follow and Christmas. Top singles include “He’s My Son,” “I Am The Way,” “Back In His Arms Again,” “You Are A Child of Mine,” “I Am,” and “I Gave Up.”
As an adopted child, he has been a spokesperson for Bethany Christian Services, World Vision, Compassion, Food For the Hungry, The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute and many others. In 2011, Schultz and his wife started the Remember Me Mission, which is a non-profit dedicated to helping orphans all over the world. Proceeds from Schultz’s music and other creative projects go toward healthcare and education for orphans at home and abroad.
2020 | MARCH
Harvard Glee Club
7:30 p.m. Monday, March 16
Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica
Telephone 724-805-2177 |
Tickets: Free |
The Harvard Glee Club, one of America’s oldest collegiate choruses, will present a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 16 at the Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica. The public is invited to attend this free performance.
Andrew Clark is the Director of Choral Activities and Senior Lecturer on Music at Harvard University. He serves as the Music Director and Conductor of the Harvard-Radclife Collegium Musicum, the Harvard Glee Club, the Radclife Choral Society, the Harvard Summer Chorus, and teaches courses in conducting, choral literature, and music and disability studies in the Department of Music.
Clark’s work with the Harvard Choral Program empowers individuals and communities through active engagement with choral music: fostering compassion, community-building, and joy. As an artist-educator devoted to advancing equity, justice, and access to the arts, Clark has developed community partnerships with youth music education programs, correctional institutions, health care facilities, overnight shelters, senior-care communities, and other service organizations operating beyond the normalized conventions of arts practice. Clark has organized Harvard residencies with distinguished conductors, composers, and ensembles, including Sweet Honey in the Rock, the Lorelei and Antioch ensembles, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Maria Guinand, Harry Christophers, Craig Hella Johnson, and Maasaki Suzuki, among others.
Since arriving at Harvard in 2010, Dr. Clark has led the Harvard Choruses in performances at the Kennedy Center, Boston Symphony Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art, and venues across the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America. His performances of choral-orchestral works with the Harvard Choruses have received critical acclaim, including Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B-Minor, Handel’s Messiah, Esther, and Israel in Egypt, the Mozart Requiem, Haydn’s Creation and Lord Nelson Mass, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Ninth Symphony, the Dvorak Stabat Mater, the All-Night Vigil of Rachmaninof, the Poulence Gloria, and Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. He has also led the Harvard Choruses in presenting seminal 20th– and 21st-century works by Arthur Honegger, Lukas Foss, Ross Lee Finney, John Corigliano, Arvo Pärt, Tigran Mansurian, Jonathan Dove, David Lang, and Trevor Weston. Clark has commissioned and premiered over fifty compositions and recently launched the Harvard Choruses New Music Initiative, supporting the creative work of undergraduate composers.
His choirs have been hailed as “first rate” (Boston Globe), “cohesive and exciting” (Opera News), and “beautifully blended” (Providence Journal), achieving performances of “passion, conviction, adrenalin, [and] coherence” (Worcester Telegram).He has collaborated with the National Symphony, the Pittsburgh and New Haven Symphonies, the Boston Pops, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Trinity Wall Street Choir, the Washington Chorus, Stephen Sondheim, Ben Folds, and the late Dave Brubeck, among others.
Prior to his appointment at Harvard, Clark was Artistic Director of the Providence Singers and served as Director of Choral Activities at Tufts University. Clark continues his work as a founding faculty member of the Notes from the Heart music program near Pittsburgh, a summer camp for children and young adults experiencing disabilities and chronic illness. He earned degrees from Wake Forest, Carnegie Mellon, and Boston Universities, studying with Ann Howard Jones, David Hoose, and the late Robert Page. He lives in Medford, MA, with his wife Amy Peters Clark, and their daughters, Amelia Grace and Eliza Jane.
View the arts and concert series’ 2019-2020 season booklet in pdf format.