Clarion Choir

Steven Fox, Artistic Director

 

The Clarion Chorus, New York’s professional chorus and proud possessor of three recent Grammy Nominations, is set to celebrate Rachmaninoff’s 150 birthday in April 2023 on tour throughout North America performing the composer's works for choruses.

 

The Clarion Chorus will offer performances and residency activities that will include the composer’s a cappella works: Vespers, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his concerted works Spring Cantata, The Bells, and Folk Songs. Conductor Steven Fox and his singers will offer master classes in rehearsal and choral techniques and intensive study of the Russian choral repertoire.

 

Their recent world-premiere recording of Alexander Kastalsky's Requiem for Fallen Brothers with Leonard Slatkin, St. Luke’s Orchestra and the Cathedral Society Choir reached #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Charts, and received a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Choral Performance 2019. 

 

Previously the Choir's recording of the a cappella premiere of Kastalsky's  Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes, received a  GRAMMY® nomination for Best Choral Performance and was 'Editor's Choice' in Gramophone. 

 

  In 2014 Clarion gave the first-ever performance of Passion Week by Russian composer Maximilian Steinberg, whose work had been banned from performance by the Soviet Union simply because it was religious. The premiere, 93 years after being composed, led to Clarion premieres in New York, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and London. The New York performance was featured on PBS, and the recording of it, the Choir's debut recording, received a GRAMMY® nomination, as well as a nomination for BBC Music Magazine's Choral Award. 

 

One of the country’s leading professional vocal ensembles, The Clarion Choir has performed on some of the great stages of North America and Europe, including  Bach Chorales as part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival with organist Paul Jacobs and performances of large-scale Renaissance works by Victoria, Palestrina, Tavener and Guerrero in the Medieval Sculpture Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Met Cloisters. The Choir, and artistic director Steven Fox, have collaborated with renowned artists such as Harry Bicket and The English Concert at Carnegie Hall, Eric Jacobsen and The Knights, Susan Graham, Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, and with Madonna at the 2018 Met Gala.

 

The Choir’s April 2023 tribute to Rachmaninoff on the occasion of his 150th anniversary stems from Steven Fox’s days at Dartmouth College and the Royal Conservatory immersing himself in the Russian language, music, and culture, as well as his years living in St. Petersburg, Russia forming an early-music orchestra and chorus.