MasterVoices is thrilled to announce its 83rd season, featuring a rarely performed Gershwin musical, the New York premiere of a contemporary American opera, and the reframing of a baroque Bach masterpiece.
Strike Up the Band
October 29 at 7:00 pm
Carnegie hall
Ted Sperling will lead the 130–member MasterVoices Chorus and guest soloists in a brand new concert staging of this 1920s Broadway gem, with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Expect soaring melodies, infectious syncopation, and loads of wit – this was the first of three shows that the Gershwins wrote with George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, the same writing team behind the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera. MasterVoices has already performed the subsequent shows: the Pulitzer Prize-winning OF THEE I SING (2017) and LET ‘EM EAT CAKE (2019 ).
Says Mr. Sperling, “Working with both the Gershwin and Kaufman estates, author Laurence Maslon and I will be creating a new edition of the show that contains the best of its 1927 and 1930 versions. This new version may prove to be the blueprint for future performances of this work.” Learn more.
Blind Injustice
February 3 & 4, 2025 at 7:30 pm
Rose hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center
With music by Scott Davenport Richards and a libretto by David Cote, based on the book Blind Injustice by Mark Godsey and casework by the Ohio Innocence Project, this 90-minute opera tells the stories of actual people who were wrongly accused, sent to prison for decades, and ultimately exonerated. Commissioned and premiered by Cincinnati Opera in 2019, this will be the work’s New York premiere.
Scott Davenport Richards is an award-winning composer/librettist whose creative works have resided at various addresses around the intersection of jazz, opera, and musical theater. Since 2005 he has been professor of Composition/Musical Theatre at Montclair State University’s Cali School of Music. David Cote is a playwright, opera librettist, and arts journalist based in New York City. Previous opera librettos include Robert Paterson’s THREE WAY (Nashville Opera and BAM); Stefan Weisman’s THE SCARLET IBIS (Prototype Festival); and Nkeiru Okoye’s 600 SQUARE FEET (Cleveland Opera Theater).
Says Mr. Sperling, “The use of a larger chorus will make its already-important role even more poignant. At times in this work, the chorus makes you feel like the whole world is against the six exonerees; and at other times, like the whole world is crying to set them free, supporting the six. With our large, diverse chorus, this should be very powerful.” Learn more.
Bach Reframed: The B Minor Mass
May 5, 2025 at 7:30 pm
The Great Hall at the Cooper Union
This concert will be a public preview performance of excerpts from a work in development – a modern, multimedia reframing of one of J.S. Bach’s most popular works, the B Minor Mass, with texts and visuals by commissioned writers and artists.
Said Mr. Sperling, “For several years I have been eager for MasterVoices to present the B Minor Mass, but in a new way that we hope will shed light on the original Latin Mass text, through the addition of new text and visuals that blooms from the original. For those who know the piece well, this should be an exciting way to reframe it, and for those who might not normally come to hear a sacred piece like this, maybe this will be an enticing way to experience the piece for the first time.” Learn more.
Click here to read the press release for the 2024-2025 Concert Season.