Join Dr. Jerry Blackstone and perform one of the most beloved masterworks of all time. The festival chorus will perform with the New York City Chamber Orchestra and soloists as part of MCP’s Masterwork Series. Singers will represent a variety of ensembles from across the country.
Grammy® Award winner Jerry Blackstone is a leading conductor and highly respected conducting pedagogue. He currently serves as Visiting Professor of Music at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music where he conducts the Women’s Chorale and the Men’s Glee Club, an ensemble in which he sang as an undergraduate. He is also Professor Emeritus of Conducting at the University of Michigan School of Music Theatre & Dance, where he served as Director of Choirs and led the graduate program in choral conducting. In February 2006, he received two Grammy® Awards (“Best Choral Performance” and “Best Classical Album”) as chorusmaster for the critically acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The Naxos recording of Milhaud’s monumental L’Orestie d’Eschyle, on which Blackstone served as chorusmaster, was nominated for a 2015 Grammy® Award (“Best Opera Recording”). Opera Magazine reviewer Tim Ashley wrote: “the real stars, though, are the University of Michigan’s multiple choirs, who are faced with what must be some of the most taxing choral writing in the entire operatic repertory. Their singing has tremendous authority and beauty, while the shouts and screams of Choéphores are unnerving in the extreme. Their diction is good too: the occasions when we don’t hear the words are Milhaud’s responsibility, rather than theirs. It’s an extraordinary achievement, and utterly mesmerizing.”
The University of Michigan Chamber Choir, conducted by Blackstone, performed by special invitation at the inaugural conference in San Antonio of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) and presented three enthusiastically received performances in New York City at the National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). As conductor of the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club from 1988-2002, Professor Blackstone led the ensemble in performances at ACDA national and division conventions and on extensive concert tours throughout Australia, Eastern and Central Europe, Asia, South America, and the United States.
In 2017, NCCO presented him with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Membership Award and, in 2006, for “significant contributions to choral music,” he received the ACDA-Michigan chapter’s Maynard Klein Lifetime Achievement Award. From 2003-2015, Dr. Blackstone served as conductor and music director of the University Musical Society (UMS) Choral Union, a large community/university chorus that frequently appears with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and the Ann Arbor Symphony and presents yearly performances of Handel’s Messiah and other major works for chorus and orchestra. Choirs prepared by Blackstone have appeared under the batons of Valery Gergiev, Neeme Järvi, Leonard Slatkin, Hans Graf, Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams, Helmuth Rilling, James Conlon, Nicholas McGegan, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Peter Oundjian, and Yitzak Perlman.
Professor Blackstone is considered one of the country’s leading conducting teachers, and his students have been first place award winners and finalists in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions of ACDA’s biennial National Choral Conducting competition. His 2016 rehearsal techniques DVD, Did You Hear That? (GIA Publications) deals with the conductor’s decision-making process during rehearsal. Santa Barbara Music Publishing distributes Blackstone’s acclaimed educational DVD, Working with Male Voices and publishes the Jerry Blackstone Choral Series.
Blackstone is an active guest conductor and workshop presenter and has appeared in forty-two states as well as New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Sicily. In the summer, he leads the Adult Choir Camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Recent appearances have included Handel’s Messiah with choir and orchestra in Shanghai, a concert in Virginia with the US Army Chorus, headlining the 2022 Illinois American Choral Directors Association’s summer conference, and serving as a guest faculty member in the Choral Masterworks session of the Summer Conducting Institute at the Eastman School of Music.
Professor Blackstone holds degrees from the University of Southern California, Indiana University, and Wheaton College.
Itinerary
Friday, June 14
Arrive in New York City
Check in to hotel
Overnight New York City
Saturday, June 15
Morning Rehearsal
Afternoon free for sightseeing
Evening Broadway Show
Sunday, June 16
Morning free for sightseeing
Afternoon Rehearsal
Evening free for sightseeing
Monday, June 17
Morning free for sightseeing
Afternoon brush-up Rehearsal
Sound check at Carnegie Hall with the New York City Chamber Orchestra
Evening concert
Post-concert buffet reception
Tuesday, June 18
Depart New York City
SCORE
Masterwork Series PAckages
For directors who want it all
Festival Chorus performance with a nationally-recognized guest conductor, professional soloists, the New York City Chamber Orchestra
Sound check and performance at New York City’s legendary Carnegie Hall, Isaac Stern Auditorium
Post-concert buffet reception
mp3 part learning tracks to assist with preparation
Audio and video archival recording of the performance
Commemorative framed mini marquee poster for the ensemble
Certificates of participation for each performer
Four-night stay at a Midtown Manhattan hotel (Westin Times Square, Hilton New York, Sheraton New York, or similar)
MTA Transit pass for use on subways and buses (two one-way rides included with upgrades available)
Group Tickets to a Broadway show
Top of the Rock observation deck
MCP operations associate for personal attention regarding your package
Flight assistance available through in-house airline coordinator
One year of membership for the ensemble director to the online learning platform, Forward Motion
For directors who plan through a tour operator
or want to book their own lodging and activities
Festival Chorus performance with a nationally-recognized guest conductor, professional soloists, the New York City Chamber Orchestra
Sound check and performance at New York City’s legendary Carnegie Hall, Isaac Stern Auditorium
Post-concert buffet reception
mp3 part learning tracks to assist with preparation
Audio and video archival recording of the performance
Commemorative framed mini marquee poster for the ensemble
Certificates of participation for each performer
One year of membership for the ensemble director to the online learning platform, Forward Motion