The Music
Under the leadership of Alan Harler, Music Director since 1988, Mendelssohn Club is currently one of Philadelphia's prominent music ensembles, with a national reputation for presentation of professional performances of the best choral/orchestral music of many eras.
The new enhancing the old enhancing the new
A hallmark of Harler's programming is his pairing of new or rarely heard works with more traditional works in order to enhance the presentation of each and to provide the audience with a familiar context for the new experience.
Music requiring large artistic forces
As a primary producer of large choral/orchestral concerts in Philadelphia, Mendelssohn Club has presented music that is seldom performed due to the unusually large artistic forces required, such as Penderecki's Passion According to St. Luke in 2002 and Ernest Bloch's full orchestra version of Sacred Service in 2006.
In Novemeber 2007, we presented the regional premiere of John Adams' 2002 On the Transmigration of Souls, with Szymanowki's Stabat Mater and James Primosch's Fire-memory/River-memory (Mendelssohn Club 1998 commission and premiere). The production included an orchestra of 70, 3 vocal soloists, combined children's choir of 72, and Mendelssohn Club's 125 singers.
Commissioned and premiered over 36 new works since 1990
Dedicated to the ongoing vitality of the choral art, Mendelssohn Club and Alan Harler have made a significant commitment to the commissioning of new choral music, and have commissioned and premiered 36 new works since 1990. Six more commissions are forthcoming in 2008-2009. This commitment has earned Mendelssohn Club an ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming. Mendelssohn Club has also been honored with an award from the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations for “bringing the community together in song” through Harler’s multicultural concert programming.
A selection of previous programs performed by Mendelssohn Club
Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw with Brahms' German Requiem
Bartók's Cantata Profana with Orff's Carmina Burana
Penderecki's Passion According to St. Luke
John Adams' 2002 On the Transmigration of Souls with Szymanowki's Stabat Mater and James Primosch's Fire-memory/River-memory
Richard Einhorn’s cantata, Voices of Light, accompanying Carl Dreyer's 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc