Oratorio Society of Minnesota Announces Performance of Johannesburg Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem at Ted Mann Concert Hall on August 5

Minneapolis, May 17, 2017 -- The Oratorio Society of Minnesota is proud to announce a concert performance of Johannes Brahms' most famous choral work, Ein Deutsches Requiem. This iconic work will be presented by the Society’s Summer Chorus, a festival chorus of 150 singers, world-class soloists - Tyler Duncan and Mary Wilson - and a professional orchestra. The concert will be conducted by Artistic Director Matthew Mehaffey.

The Requiem was premiered in an initial form in December 1867, with the revised final version of the Requiem first heard in Leipzig, Germany in February 1869. It represents Brahms’s most ambitious vocal music. Brahms curated the text of the piece by himself from the German Bible. The libretto is notable for its ecumenical, non-sectarian, and human approach to the subject of death and the departed.

Visit www.oratorio.org for more information and tickets.

Who: Oratorio Society Summer Chorus, soloists, (Tyler Duncan, baritone and Mary Wilson, soprano) and professional orchestra

What: Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah

When: Saturday August 5, 2016.

• Concert: 7:30 pm

Where: Ted Mann Concert Hall, Minneapolis

Tickets $10-25 available at http://oratorio.org or by calling 866-811-4111

The Oratorio Society of Minnesota is an auditioned 90-voice choral ensemble based in the Twin Cities. Celebrating its 37th season, OSM challenges and delights its audiences through dynamic and diverse choral music performed with skill and passion. Society members are of all ages and from all walks of life and have considerable choral singing experience. The Society’s civic engagement and educational programs foster lifelong choral singing.

American conductor and educator Matthew Mehaffey is crafting a national reputation in the field of choral/orchestral music through his engaging artistry, collaborative spirit, affirming pedagogical style, and entrepreneurial approach to concert programming.

As a conductor, Dr. Mehaffey serves as Music Director of two respected civic choruses, The Oratorio Society of Minnesota and The Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh – the “Chorus of Choice” of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Each week he leads over 200 passionate amateur and professional singers in Pittsburgh and St. Paul in the development of concert programs that both celebrate the standard choral/orchestral repertoire and push the boundaries of a traditional choral concert. Recent notable professional engagements include work with Washington National Opera, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Prague Proms, Lyra Baroque Orchestra, VocalEssence, Minnesota Chorale, Singers in Accord, and Turner Network Television.

As a teacher, Dr. Mehaffey is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Minnesota, where he conducts the University Singers and Men's Chorus, teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in conducting and music literature, and is the 2015 recipient of the Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award. At the university, Mehaffey and his colleague Kathy Saltzman Romey oversee a choral program of 6 graduate students, 7 choirs, and over 300 singers. Graduate conducting students under the tutelage of Romey and Mehaffey have achieved considerable success in a variety of venues, including: the ACDA National Choral Conducting Competition (2015 winner); prestigious conducting masterclasses offered by ACDA, Chorus America, National Collegiate Choral Organization, and the Oregon Bach Festival; presentations at College Music Society and NAfME symposia; and by serving as choral leaders in academic institutions and civic ensembles around the country. He has served on the faculties of The George Washington University, Macalester College, and the summer faculties of Westminster Choir College, and University of St. Thomas.

He is the co-author of Choral Ensemble Intonation: Methods, Procedures, and Exercises and the co-editor of three volumes of Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir – all for GIA Publications. He is also co-author of the chapter “A Multiplicity of Voices: Choral Music in the United States,” for the internationally released volume, The Cambridge Companion to Choral Music.

Dr. Mehaffey possesses degrees in music from Bucknell University, Westminster Choir College, and the University of Arizona, and is eternally grateful for his formative musical mentors William Payn, Kay Payn, James Jordan, Joseph Flummerfelt, Maurice Skones, and Bruce Chamberlain. He lives in Minnesota with his wife Libby, their four children, and two dogs on a hilly plot of land that reminds him of his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He enjoys golf, baseball, and cooking in his spare time.

Canadian baritone Tyler Duncan recently performed at the Metropolitan Opera as Prince Yamadori in Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. At the Spoleto Festival, he debuted as Mr. Friendly in the 18th-century ballad opera Flora, returning the next season as the Speaker in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Other appearances have included the role of the Journalist in Berg's Lulu and Fiorello in Rossini's Barber of Seville, both at the Metropolitan Opera, Raymondo in Handel’s Almira with the Boston Early Music Festival, Dandini in Rossini’s La cenerentola with Pacific Opera Victoria; and Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Princeton Festival. Issued on the CPO label is his Boston Early Music Festival recording of the title role in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis.

Mr. Duncan’s concerts include Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the American Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony, Berlioz L’enfance du Christ with the Montreal Symphony; both Bach and Mendessohn’s Magnificat with the New York Philharmonic; Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Munich Bach Choir, Montreal Symphony, and the Oregon Bach Festival; Haydn’s The Creation with the Québec, Montreal, and Winnipeg symphony orchestras; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Calgary Philharmonic and Philharmonie der Nationen in Munich, Berlin, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt; Haydn’s The Seasons with the Calgary Philharmonic; Handel’s Messiah with Tafelmusik, the Montreal and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, Handel and Haydn Society, San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque, and Portland Baroque; Mozart’s Requiem with the Montreal, Toronto, and Salt Lake City Symphony Orchestras. He has also performed at Germany’s Halle Händel Festival, Verbier Festival, Vancouver Early Music Festival, Montreal Bach Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Lanaudière Festival, Stratford Festival, Berkshire Choral Festival, and New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Frequently paired with pianist Erika Switzer, Tyler Duncan has given acclaimed recitals in New York, Boston, and Paris, and throughout Canada, Germany, Sweden, France, and South Africa. Mr. Duncan has received prizes from the Naumburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Munich’s ARD competitions, and won the 2010 Joy in Singing competition, 2008 New York Oratorio Society Competition, 2007 Prix International Pro Musicis Award, and Bernard Diamant Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts. He holds music degrees from the University of British Columbia, Germany’s Hochschule für Musik (Augsburg), and Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Munich). He is a founding member on the faculty of the Vancouver International Song Institute.

Mr. Duncan’s recordings include Bach’s St. John Passion with Portland Baroque and a DVD of Handel’s Messiah with Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony from CBC Television. On the ATMA label are works by Purcell and Carissimi’s Jepthe with Les Voix Baroque. www.tylerduncan.ca

Minnesota native Mary Wilson is acknowledged as one of today's most exciting young artists. Cultivating a wide-ranging career singing chamber music, oratorio and operatic repertoire, her “bright soprano seems to know no terrors, wrapping itself seductively around every phrase.” (Dallas Morning News) Receiving consistent critical acclaim from coast to coast, “she proves why many in the opera world are heralding her as an emerging star. She is simply amazing, with a voice that induces goose bumps and a stage presence that is mesmerizing. She literally stole the spotlight…” (Arizona Daily Star).

In high demand on the concert stage, Ms. Wilson has most-recently appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Detroit Symphony, Delaware Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Jacksonville Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, VocalEssence, and at the Hollywood Bowl. She has worked with conductors including Nicholas McGegan, Bernard Labadie, Martin Pearlman, Martin Haselböck, JoAnn Falletta, Michael Stern, Anton Armstrong, Philip Brunelle and Leonard Slatkin. An exciting interpreter of Baroque repertoire, especially Handel, she has appeared with Philharmonia Baroque, Musica Angelica, American Bach Soloists, Boston Baroque, Grand Rapids Bach Festival, Bach Society of St. Louis, Baltimore Handel Choir, Florida Bach Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Casals Festival, and the Carmel Bach Festival. With the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, she sang the world premiere of the song cycle “Songs Old and New” written especially for her by Ned Rorem. She was named an Emerging Artist by Symphony Magazine in 2004 in the publication’s first ever presentation of promising classical soloists on the rise. On the opera stage, she is especially noted for her portrayals of Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Gilda in Rigoletto. She has created leading roles in North American and World premiere performances of Dove’s Flight, Glass’ Galileo Galilei, and Petitgirard’s Joseph Merrick dit L’Elephant Man. She has appeared most recently with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Minnesota Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Dayton Opera, Arizona Opera, Tulsa Opera, Mississippi Opera, Southwest Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Goodman Theatre.

An accomplished pianist, Ms. Wilson holds performance degrees from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She currently resides in Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband and son.