Norwalk Norwalk Symphony Messiah Sing-Along & Holiday Extravaganza

The Norwalk Symphony presents their Holiday Extravaganza Concert in the Norwalk Concert Hall at 125 East Avenue in Norwalk on Sat., Dec. 7 at 5:00p.m. 

The program will launch with a Sing-Along of one of the great classics of the holiday season, the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah.   

The orchestra and soloists will be on the stage, led by Music Director Jonathan Yates, but the audience will be the chorus.   

Members of the Serendipity Chorale and the New Canaan High School Chorus will be scattered throughout the audience as leaders of the choir to ensure the highest level of music making.  

Four soloists with prestigious international careers -Amelia Watkins, Leanne Gonzalez-Singer, Thomas Young, and Michael Rice- will sing the famous recitatives and arias. 

After intermission, the concert will become even more festive, with the Men’s Gospel Choir of the Pivot Ministries singing gospel music, after which all of the choruses, soloists and audience members will sing favorite holiday carols with the orchestra.

Described by Opera News as having "a rich, glowing lyric sound destined for the heights", the Norwalk Symphony’s soprano soloist Amelia Watkins has recently appeared with the New York City Opera, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Lincoln Centre, and Tanglewood Music Festival. 

Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times praised 'the soprano Amelia Watkins, who brings bright sound and touching vulnerability to her performance'.  A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Amelia is a laureate of the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques,  has been a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival, a Young Artist at Berkshire Opera, and a resident performer with the Metropolitan Opera Guild outreach program.

A versatile singer/actor, Alto Leanne Gonzalez-Singer has appeared on the operatic stage with Opera Omaha, Caramoor Festival, dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, Center for Contemporary Opera and the Ash Lawn-Highland Opera Festival, among others.  As Madame de Croissy, the First Prioress, in Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble’s critically acclaimed Dialogues of the Carmelites, she earned praise from reviewers for her “rich chest voice” and “wrenching….perfect emotional pitch."    

Leanne has won awards from the Bel Canto Scholarship Foundation and the Annapolis Opera Competition and was a finalist/semifinalist in several competitions including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.   

Grammy and Cleo-award winning lyric tenor Thomas Young has appeared as a principal soloist in the major concert halls and opera houses of some 30 countries, and under the baton of, among others, Zubin Mehta, Roger Norrington, Simon Rattle, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.   Called on 48 hours’ notice to sing Aron in Schoenberg's Moses und Aron at the Maggio Musicale Florentino

Festival in Florence under the baton of Zubin Mehta, Mr. Young's singing was "... just short of miraculous."  Mr. Young's national tours include Jesus Christ Superstar in the role of Judas and The Wiz as The Wiz. Recent engagements include touring, recording and performing as part of the well-known ensemble Three Mo' Tenors.

Bass-Baritone Michael Rice has performed with a variety of companies including Castleton Festival under Lorin Maazel, New York City Opera, Opera de Nice, Utah Symphony and Opera, The Ravinia Festival, Central City, Glimmerglass, Sarasota, and Opera. He is also the host and producer of a podcast called OperaNow!, which is weekly, round-table discussion about the goings-on in the opera world.  The show has achieved great popularity and has been named “Podcast of the Week” in the London Times and was nominated for a Podcast Award in the Cultural/Arts category.

The Pivot Choir 
Pivot Ministries began in 1970 to address increasing drug use among teens and young adults in the Norwalk community.  The goal was to create a ministry that would ‘turn men’s lives around’ and Pivot Ministries was born.  Pivot Ministries has grown from a small ‘Pivot House’ on 52 Chestnut Street in Norwalk to four properties capable of providing housing and services to 77 men.   

Pivot Ministries’ on-campus Community Center was built and opened in 2009 and hosts General Educational Development (GED) classes, 12 step meetings, staff training and neighborhood service projects. An adjoining greenhouse opened in 2011 and is focused on creating employment training and opportunities for Pivot graduates. Pivot created a Community Development Corporation (CDC) in 2012. The CDC’s mission is to create small businesses that will train and employ Pivot students and graduates.  

Spiritual music is used as an integral component to Pivot’s members’ recovery. The Pivot Choir performs on a regular basis at several area churches. Over the years the men have performed with the Norwalk Symphony, the New Haven Gospel Festival and several community gatherings.

Tickets for the December 7 Holiday Extravaganza concert can be purchased at www.norwalksymphony.org or by calling 203-956-6771.  You can purchase music for the choruses of the Sing-Along Messiah as well.

The Norwalk Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is dedicated to serving our community by inspiring audiences with exciting orchestral music, nurturing emerging young artists and providing music education programs for people of all ages.  The NSO is a regional orchestra serving southwestern Connecticut, its patrons residing primarily in Norwalk, Westport, Fairfield, Wilton, Weston, Darien and New Canaan.   The Symphony’s annual series attracts approximately 3,000 people to Norwalk, and reaches thousands more through its music education and appreciation programs.