Â鶹´«Ă˝â€™s Choir, under the leadership of Donna M. Di Grazia, and the Â鶹´«Ă˝ Orchestra led by Eric Lindholm will join forces with Grammy®-winning baritone Nmon Ford for two performances of Mendelssohn’s dramatic Elijah. The concerts will be held at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 14 and 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 16 in Bridges Hall of Music, (150 E. Fourth St., Claremont) and are free and open to the public.
Conducting the two performances, Eric Lindholm shares what brought the two conductors to choose Mendelssohn’s piece for this year’s collaboration concert. “Elijah,” Lindholm states, “is a work of tremendous scope, almost operatic in its dramatic pacing and contrasts. Mendelssohn drew on his extensive experience as a composer, performer, and conductor to arrive at a comprehensive vision for how to present this story, which appears in various Islamic, Judaic and Christian texts, as a complete work of art. We’re very excited to be involving nine student soloists to sing important parts of the action, along with the full ensembles as well as the brilliant baritone Nmon Ford in the title role.”
Ford, a Pomona native, sings the title role in these two performances, reprieving a role he has sung at the Washington National Cathedral with the Cathedral Choral Society. The Hollywood Reporter has called Ford “matinee-idol handsome, with a rich and supple baritone capable of both power and subtlety,” and The Financial Times hailed, “He sings with intelligent musicality and a warm, expressive upper range.” As a featured soloist on the four-time Grammy®-winning Songs of Innocence and Experience (Naxos) and the Grammy-winning Transmigrations (Telarc), Ford has enjoyed success in increasingly challenging and dramatic repertoire, including as Jochanaan (Salome) with the Pittsburgh Opera and Opéra National de Bordeaux and as Pizarro (Fidelio) with the Cincinnati Opera. He has performed with the Chicago Opera Theater and the Long Beach Opera in the title role of Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth. He’s joined the St. Louis Symphony (Carmina Burana), Atlanta Symphony and Milwaukee Symphony (Brahms’ Requiem), and after performing Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire conducted by John Axelrod, he was immediately re-engaged by them for Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Fauré’s Requiem.
Student soloists, all members of the Â鶹´«Ă˝ Choir, include Willie Curtis ’18 from Salem, OR (Obadiah); Natalya Ponomareva ’18 from Austin, TX (an angel, angel quartet and duet); Anita Mathias ’19 from Claremont, CA (angel quartet); Haruka Sano ’18 from Yokohama, Japan (angel quartet); Danielle Wharton ’19 from New Orleans, LA (angel quartet); Mark Penrod ’18 from Shoreline, WA (Ahab and an angel); Anastasia Kourotchkina ’20 (Scripps) from Moscow, Russia (an angel); Lydia Saylor ’18 from New York, NY (The Youth and duet); and Briana Grether ’18 from Lafayette, CA (The Queen).
Pomona’s choral tradition is a long and rich one, dating back to the College’s founding in 1887, with the esteemed choral conductor, the late Robert Shaw ’38, its most distinguished alumnus. The Â鶹´«Ă˝ Choir, under the leadership of Donna M. Di Grazia, David J. Baldwin Professor of Music, boasts a membership of 70-80 auditioned singers each semester, with student, faculty and staff representatives from across The Claremont Colleges. Its repertoire includes Western classical art music from all historical periods, performing works ranging from Palestrina’s Exultate Deo to Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine and Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei, and larger works with orchestra including Brahms’ Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Magnificat, Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances (in Russian) and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms (in Hebrew).
The Â鶹´«Ă˝ Orchestra, led by prize-winning conductor Eric Lindholm, is one of the largest and most prestigious performing organizations on campus. The majority of its members are Â鶹´«Ă˝ students; however the ensemble also has representatives from Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, and Pitzer colleges, as well as the Claremont Graduate University, other local colleges, and the greater Claremont community. Recent performances have featured such works as Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, Christopher Rouse’s Flute Concerto, Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and the Verdi Requiem, plus major works by Tchaikovsky, Mahler, BartĂłk, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and others.