ABOUT

One of the country’s leading professional vocal ensembles, The Clarion Choir has performed on some of the great stages of North America and Europe. Their recent recording of Kastalsky's Requiem reached #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Charts, and has been nominated for a GRAMMY® for Best Choral Performance. The Clarion Choir made their Lincoln Center debut in 2011, performing Bach Chorales as part of the White Light Festival with organist Paul Jacobs. In 2014, the choir gave the New York premiere of Passion Week by Maximilian Steinberg, and, in October of 2016, premiered the work in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and London. Their performance was featured on PBS, and their recording of it, the Choir's debut recording, received a GRAMMY® nomination, as well as a nomination for BBC Music Magazine's Choral Award. The Choir's second recording, the world premiere recording of Alexander Kastalsky's Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes, also was nominated for a GRAMMY® for Best Choral Performance and was 'Editor's Choice' in Gramophone.

The Clarion Choir has performed regularly in recent years as part of the MetLiveArts series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; including performances of large-scale Renaissance works by Victoria, Palestrina, Taverner and Guerrero in the Medieval Sculpture Hall and the Met Cloisters. The Choir, and artistic director Steven Fox, have collaborated in recent years with renowned artists such as Harry Bicket and The English Concert at Carnegie Hall, Eric Jacobsen and The Knights, Susan Graham, Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Madonna at the 2018 Met Gala.

The Clarion Orchestra was founded in 1957 by conductor and musicologist Newell Jenkins. Beginning on modern instruments, then switching to period instruments in the 1970s, Clarion became one of the first period ensembles with a concert series in the United States. Shortly after Jenkins’ tenure, the series had a nearly ten-year hiatus until its revival in 2006 by the Clarion Board of Directors and Steven Fox. Since its revival the Orchestra has received critical acclaim, being called “stellar” and “polished” by The New York Times, and “legendary” by The New Yorker. Many of the ensemble members are acclaimed as solo and chamber musicians and serve on renowned music faculties at The Juilliard School, Bard College, SUNY Purchase, Mannes School of Music and Yale School of Music; other members of the Orchestra are recent graduates of such programs. The Orchestra has played on such prestigious stages as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Frick Collection in repertoire that has ranged from the early Baroque to the early Romantic. In 2009, The Clarion Orchestra was featured in Jonathan Miller’s iconic production of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at BAM. And in the spring of 2017, the Orchestra, in collaboration with Christodora, produced its first-ever staged opera production, Mozart’s Magic Flute. The sold-out performances received critical acclaim in The New York Times, Opera News, The New York Concert Review and London’s Opera magazine, which reported, “the generously sized period orchestra played superbly.” In recent years, the Orchestra has been a recipient of three Art Works grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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