Choral Celebration to be Held in Honor of Alfred Nash Patterson

Sunday November 7th will see the staging of a “choral celebration” in honor of the great New England choral conductor Alfred Nash “Bud” Patterson, who died 25 years ago this year.

The main event of the celebration will be a concert at 3:00 pm by Chorus pro Musica, the groundbreaking chorus that Patterson himself founded, at the Church of the Advent in Beacon Hill. The concert will feature great choral works associated with New England, including Copland’s In the Beginning, featuring mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal, Charles Ives’ choral masterpiece Psalm 90, and Lili Boulanger’s dramatic Psalm 24. It will also feature And Sing Eternally by Alice Parker, who will receive the 2004 Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the premiere of a new work written for the occasion by renowned composer Daniel Pinkham, a friend and colleague of Patterson.

The concert will be preceded, at 2:30, by a talk describing the heady developments that led to today’s vibrant choral scene, in which Patterson was heavily involved. Before that, at noon, there will be a choral singers’ workshop, led by Back Bay Chorale music director Scott Allen Jarrett. This will include works from both the concert program and beyond that exemplify fine choral singing technique. The workshop will be open to the public, and enthusiastic choral singers from throughout New England are encouraged to attend.

Singers will also be invited to the post-concert reception at Moseley Hall, as will choral directors and educators, composers, leading media critics, and recipients of Patterson Lifetime Achievement Awards.

All money raised will benefit Choral Arts New England, a nonprofit organization originally established as the Alfred Nash Patterson Foundation shortly after the conductor’s death for the purpose of giving grants to encourage adventurous concert programming, support music education and the training of young choral singers, and foster festivals and other cooperative choral projects.

General admission tickets for the benefit concert cost $30. Attendees of the choral singers’ workshop will be asked to pay a nominal fee to cover expenses.