Greetings!

Kent’s 2026-27 concert season is announced! For starters: Mozart’s Requiem with the Cathedral Choirs of St. John the Divine, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Oratorio Society of New York, and Thea Musgrave’s The Voices of Our Ancestors with Musica Sacra. Read on!

• Musica Sacra’s popular immersive concert format returns with “SurRound: The Earth Remembers” at St. John the Divine (October 7), a widely diverse program focused on the natural world with singers in motion throughout the audience under Gaia, a massive orb 23 feet in diameter depicting the Earth, revolving and illuminated from within. These tickets go quickly!
  
  Benjamin Britten’s eternal Christmas classic A Ceremony of Carols for chorus and harp, with guest harpist Mariko Anraku, is the focus of Musica Sacra’s annual holiday concert at Carnegie Hall (December 17). Thea Musgrave’s The Voices of Our Ancestors for narrator, chorus, brass, and organ sets the creation hymn from the Rigveda, an ancient Sanskrit verse, and eleven other poems, all translated into English from almost as many languages. Poet and author David Mills will narrate the work (April 20).

• The Oratorio Society of New York’s Carnegie Hall season launches with Gabriel Fauré’s luminous and tender Requiem on a program also featuring songs by Beethoven and Brahms and Jasmine Barnes’s Portraits: Douglass and Tubman, a stirring choral-orchestral song cycle setting the words of two towering abolitionists (November 10). The OSNY’s 152nd annual performance of Messiah features the soloists Jennifer Zetlan, Daniel Moody, Brian Giebler, and Jonathan Woody (December 21). Kent culminates the OSNY season with a performance of Bach’s mighty Mass in B Minor featuring soloists Elisse Albian, Lucia Bradford, Maximillian Jansen, and Kevin Deas (May 3). 
  
• The “Joy of Christmas” concert by the Cathedral Choirs of St. John the Divine features Vivaldi’s Gloria and a Handel organ concerto (December 11 & 12), and the New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace brings favorite guests Jason Robert Brown, Paul Winter, and David Briggs (December 31). Kent leads the Cathedral Choir and Chorale in Mozart’s immortal Requiem on a program also including the Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, which features the Cathedral Choristers (children’s group), conducted by Bryan Zaros. The program’s soloists are Susanna Phillips, Mary Beth Nelson Zaros, Joshua Blue, and William Guanbo Su (March 13).

Kent also prepares Musica Sacra for its latest collaborations with other top-tier organizations: Carnegie Hall’s presentation of Götterdämmerung; the New York Philharmonic’s presentation of Amadeus in Concert live score performance; and the New York City Ballet’s signature production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

All this, organ recitals, and more, are detailed below. Subscriptions for Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society season are on sale now. Single tickets will be available soon – stay tuned! 

Splendor & Interconnection

Gregg Smith: Now I Walk in Beauty

Meredith Monk: Astronaut Anthem              

Jean Mouton: Sancti Dei omnes (From the Medici Codex of 1518)

Lament & Fracture

Robert Paterson: “Infinite Oceans” (from The Essence of Gravity)

Christina Whitten Thomas: “Prière de la Baleine” (“Prayer of the Whale”) from Choral de Bêtes

Einojuhani Rautavaara: Die Erste Elegie (The First Elegy)             

Reconciliation & Renewal

Frank Ticheli: Earth Song

Caroline Shaw: and the sparrow

Robert Paterson: “A Song on the End of the World” (from Eternal Reflections)

Christina Whitten Thomas: Take Peace

Juan Pérez Bocanegra: Hanacpachap Cussicuinin

Gabriel Fauré: Requiem

L. v. Beethoven: Elegischer Gesang

Johannes Brahms: Vier Gesänge

Jasmine Barnes: Portraits: Douglass and Tubman

Ondi Yohan Tambunan: Gloria

G.F. Handel: Organ Concerto in F Major, The Cuckoo and the Nightingale

Franz Biebl: Ave Maria

Reena Esmail: The Unexpected Early Hour (Raag Ahir Bhairav)

Antonio Vivaldi: Gloria in D Major

Christmas carols sung by all

Benjamin Britten: A Ceremony of Carols

Francesco Onofrio Manfredini: Concerto for Two Trumpets in D

Morton Lauridsen: O Magnum Mysterium

Reena Esmail: “The unexpected early hour” from A Winter Breviary

Edward Elgar: The Snow

Leopold Mozart: Sleigh Ride

Marcel Grandjany: Aria in Classic Style for harp and strings

Wayne Oquin: O Magnum Mysterium

G.F. Handel: The King Shall Rejoice

Program to include:

W.A. Mozart: Serenade in D Major

Joel Thompson: America Will Be!

Arvo Pärt: Da pacem Domine

Rich Campbell: Border

Caroline Shaw: and the swallow        

St. Martial: Victimae Paschali laudes

Worcester Fragments: Gloria-Spiritus procedens a Patre (arr. Denis Stevens)

From the Medici Codex of 1518 commissioned by Pope Leo X

Josquin des Prez: Inviolata et integra est

Adrian Willaert: Regina Caeli Laetare            

David Mills will read excerpts from his poetry collection Boneyarn

Thea Musgrave: The Voices of Our Ancestors