Angelica Women’s Chamber Choir
A visit from this wonderful chamber choir, directed by Marie Caruso, has become a seasonal tradition for our Downtown Music audience. With a focus on the winter solstice and new beginnings, Angelica’s program features medieval songs including Stella splendens from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrata 13th-century French conductus Gedeonis area; Palestrina’s “Exultate Deo”; Eriks Ešenvalds Muusika; and Libby Larsen’s Natus est Emmanuel.
This concert is made possible, in part, with the generous support of Elias Dagher and Dagher Engineering., PLLC.
Angelica Women’s Chamber Choir is a non-profit, Westchester-based women’s choral ensemble formed in 1996 by Susan Ball, who served as the group’s first Artistic Director, and three other founding members. When she and her husband went to Armenia to serve in the Peace Corps in 2005, she passed the baton to founding member Marie Caruso, who has been Artistic Director since that time. Angelica presents two or more spring and winter concerts annually, performing music from the 1st through 21st centuries. The group has sung a wide range of works, including early music by Machaut, Palestrina, Dufay, Monteverdi; contemporary compositions by Lili Boulanger, Peter Maxwell Davies, Einojuhani Rautavaara, John Tavener, and Julie Dolphin (special commission); and a unique variety of music, including chant, Sephardic, Balkan, and American folk.
Although specializing in a cappella music, Angelica has also presented such works as
Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols with harp, Stravinsky’s Four Russian Peasant Songs with French horns, selections from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat and the Codex las Huelgas with lute, harp, and percussion, Sephardic songs with oud and dumbek, and
Porpora’s Magnificat and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with violins and basso continuo. The group has collaborated with such esteemed artists as lutist Paul Shipper, oudist Carlo Valte, percussionist Rex Benincasa, organists William Buthod and Christopher Johnson, violinists Andrea Andros and Margaret Ziemnicka, and harpist Lisa Tannebaum. We also sometimes accompany ourselves on various instruments, including authentic early music instruments such as portative and hurdy-gurdy.
We perform throughout the year in both Manhattan and Westchester. In addition to our regular concerts, Angelica also sings in the Downtown Music at Grace Series in White Plains. Angelica sang at the 2006 International Festival of Women and Girls Choirs, hosted by Virginia Davidson and the New York Treble Singers. In 2014, Angelica participated in the Verona Garda Estate Choral Festival, ChoralFest USA in New York’s Symphony Space in 2015, the Sardinia Choral Festival in 2016, and in the Lithuania Choral Festival in 2018.
Angelica has been hailed for its “perfect blend and beautiful, transcendent sound.” Eugene Sirotkine, former Assistant Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, and Director of the New York Metamorphoses Orchestra, describes Angelica as having a “gorgeous sound, rich sonorities, and transparent harmonies.”
Angelica has been Artist-in-Residence at the First Reformed Church of Hastings-on-Hudson since Fall 2018. Angelica is also a member of the New York Choral Consortium and a sustaining member of the Vocal Area Network.