4 THURSDAY NIGHTS AT 7:30 PM -- PRE-CONCERT LECTURES AT 6:30 PM
Tickets: $40 general admission; $30 students/seniors; $150 season tickets
Palestrina at 500
October 23, 2025 - 7:30 PM (lecture at 6:30 PM)
Palestrina at 500
The Choir of St. Luke in the Fields
Palestrina remains a monumental figure in music history, celebrated for his unmatched mastery of sacred polyphony during the Renaissance. His compositions blend technical brilliance with profound spirituality, creating works that illuminate the divine mysteries they seek to express. This concert is in honor of the 500th birthday of this venerable master. The program will showcase Palestrina as a consummate craftsman with a wide range of his works.
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A Baroque Christmas in Rome
December 4, 2025 - 7:30 PM (lecture at 6:30 PM)
A Baroque Christmas in Rome
The Choir of St. Luke in the Fields with Baroque in the Fields period instrument orchestra
Rome is a city of magnificent churches, and of those, one of the most beautiful is the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. This concert will offer music that might have been heard on Christmas Eve in the basilica in the early years of the 18th century. The centerpiece will be Alessandro Scarlatti’s Messa per il Santissimo Natale, a Christmas mass in the Roman polychoral style composed for Santa Maria Maggiore in 1707. The mass, a masterful fusion of Renaissance stile antico and the Baroque stile concertato, perfectly captures the essence of the Christmas narrative, from the joyously dancing violin ritornelli to the quiet reverence of the Nativity scene. The program will also include festive motets by Scarlatti and Giacomo Carissimi, and organ works by Bernardo Pasquini.
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Johann Sebastian Bach’s Motets
March 12, 2026 7:30 pm (6:30 pm Lecture)
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Motets
The Choir of St. Luke in the Fields
Bach’s motets are some of the greatest – and most virtuosic – of all Bach’s choral works. They represent Bach both at his exuberant best, in particular, the large double choir works Singet dem Herrn and Der Geist Hilf. The motets also contain some of Bach’s most profound and intense music. As with virtually every other genre that he composed in, Bach brought motet composition to its pinnacle.
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George Frideric Handel: Esther
May 7, 2026 7:30 pm (6:30 pm Lecture)
George Frideric Handel: Esther
The Choir of St. Luke in the Fields with Baroque in the Fields period instrument orchestra
Handel’s Esther has long enjoyed the cachet for being the first English Oratorio. Though this is Handel's first oratorio, it already demonstrates Handel's ability to create an enormous variety of orchestral color and to bring to life compelling drama in music. Recounting the story of Esther and Haman from the Hebrew Scriptures, the work incorporates elements of masque, pastoral and opera.
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