Abendmusik, the concert series sponsored by Music At Morristown United Methodist Church, concludes its 2012-2013 season with a concert on Saturday, April 20 at 7:30 pm featuring The Chancel Chorus of MUMC in a concert entitled “Heavenly Music.”
The program features “How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place” (Brahms), “And I Saw A New Heaven” (Bainton), “Sing Me To Heaven” (Gawthrop), and the Fauré “Requiem.”
Stephen Bryant is the bass soloist and Tami Petty is the soprano soloist in the “Requiem.” Brian Schoettler is the organist and June Van Thoen is the conductor. There is a suggested donation of $20.00 for adults and $15.00 for senior citizens. Advance tickets are available ($17 adults/$12 seniors) by telephoning the church office 973-538-2132. Students with ID are admitted Free. The concert will be presented at MorristownUnitedMethodistChurch, 50 Park Place(on the Green), Morristown, NJ. Our facilities are handicapped accessible. There will be a reception following the concert. Please visit our website for more information: www.morristownumc.com
Stephen Bryant, Bass-Baritone, is a Grammy nominated opera singer and has an international career having performed with the San Francisco Opera, the Netherlands Opera, New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich, and the Pittsburgh Symphony to name a few. He was nominated for a Grammy performing the role of Dante in the opera “Marco Polo” written by the Oscar winning composer, Tan Dun. He will perform this work in May at the Bergen International Music Festival in Norway. Before that in March he will perform Jesus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional in Mexico City. Stephen also premiered Tan Dun’s Water Passion of St. Matthew in Stuttgart. He has performed the work in London, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Macau, and the Bach Festival in Eugene Oregon. He received his undergraduate training in vocal performance at Oberlin College Conservatory and has Masters’ degrees in voice and choral conducting from the University of Michigan.
Tami Petty, Soprano, recently debuted at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall with great acclaim singing Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle as the Sorel Organizations’s inaugural recipient of the Emerging Artist Award. Her soaring soprano has been featured this past season in Strauss’s FOUR LAST SONGS with the Fort Collins Symphony, Michael Tippett’s A CHILD OF OUR TIME with the Manchester Choral Society, as Leonore in FIDELIO with Opera Fort Collins, and as Woglinde in excerpts from Wagner’s DAS RHEINGOLD at the Bard Summerscape Festival with the American Symphony Orchestra. She has performed with San Francisco Opera Center, San Francisco Ballet Symphony, Voices of Ascension, Riverside Choral Society, Grace Church Choral Society, Five Burroughs Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Rochester Oratorio Society, Rochester Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Bach Festival, Finger Lakes Chamber Ensemble, and Canada’s London Fanshawe Symphonic Orchestra.
Brian Schoettler, Organist and composer, is currently Organist at Morristown United Methodist Church in Morristown, New Jersey and Graduate Assistant in the Sacred Music Department at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. Brian has travelled around the world performing in Austria, Belize, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Japan, and Mexico with such groups as the Carthage Choir, the Carthage Wind Orchestra, and the Tremper Golden Strings. As a member of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, he has recently performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the batons of such conductors as Jacques Lacombe, Simon Rattle, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Brian currently studies organ with Alan Morrison and composition with Benjamin C.S. Boyle. Brian will continue his studies this summer as part of the European American Musical Alliance’s Composition Program at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. In the fall, Brian will continue his organ studies pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Brian’s compositions and upcoming performances are available on his website: www.brianschoettler.com. Brian graduated summa cum laude from Carthage College with a triple emphasis in Organ Performance, Church Music, and Instrumental Music Education and is currently finishing a Master of Music degree in Organ Performance and Composition at Westminster Choir College.
June Laine Van Thoen is the Director of Music Ministries at the United Methodist Church in Morristown, New Jersey where she conducts four vocal choirs, one handbell choir, and is the director of two Concert Series, Music At Noon and Abendmusik. She has served on the adjunct faculty of William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ, and has been an adjudicator for high school choral festivals in the New Jersey area. She is a graduate of East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, with a Master of Music in Voice Performance. She attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA, and toured as a soloist and chorister with the Norman Luboff Choir for two seasons. She participated for six years as a member of the auditioned chorus in the Robert Shaw Workshop performances at Carnegie Hall.
Funding has been made possible in part by funds from MorrisArts (formerly the Arts Council of the Morris Area) through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. For further information: 973-538-2132 or www.morristownumc.com
