Louis Langrée and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra close the 2012 Festival with a rarely heard Beethoven masterpiece, the groundbreaking Mass in C major. James will prepare the Concert Chorale of New York for this performance.

James will be preparing the chorus for this rarely performed concert version of Camilles Saint-Saëns opera Henry VIII.

n this year’s Bard Music Festival, the worlds of Balzac and Proust come alive through the music of Saint-Saëns and his contemporaries. Listeners will discover how Saint-Saëns shaped our sense of the history of music—from the age of Lully and Rameau to Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin—and resisted the allure of a xenophobic concept of the French spirit. James will prepare the chorus for the choral works presented on Program Nine, The Spritiutal Sensibility, to include Fauré's “Les Djinns", Boulanger's “Psalm130”, Florent Schmidt's, “Psalm 47”, Gounod's “Stabat Mater” and Saint-Saens' “Le Deluge”.

James will be preparing the chorus for this concert which pairs Beethoven’s playful and poignant Second Symphony with Mozart's Nelson Mass, a work that moves joyfully from terror to euphoria.

James will be preparing the chorus for this year's opera. This tale of Henri de Valois, a 16th-century French noble elected by the people of Poland to be their king, despite his great reluctance to be away from France, has been much praised for the quality of its music—indeed, no less a master than Maurice Ravel claimed that Chabrier’s score changed the course of French harmony. Given a contemporary treatment by Thaddeus Strassberger, who also directed Bard SummerScape’s acclaimed productions of Les Huguenots (2009) and The Distant Sound (2010), this staging will be a coproduction with Ireland’s Wexford Festival Opera, which annually hosts one of the world’s finest showcases for the grandest of vocal arts.

The Israel Philharmonic has again engaged The Chorale to sing with them in Israel and Salzburg, Austria, after a very successful 5-concert tour in 2008 with this prestigious orchestra. This July, James will prepare the Chorale for 11 concerts in Israel and 3 performances at the preeminent Salzburg Festival.

Israel Tour -

July 8-20, Zubin Mehta conducting, concerts to include:

Ernst Bloch, Sacred Service, featuring Thomas Hampson
Anton Bruckner, Te Deum
Noam Sheriff, Mechaye Hametim
Arnold Schoenberg, Kol Nidre
Gustav Mahler, Kindertotenlieder, featuring Thomas Hampson

July 19, 21,22 - Riccardo Muti conducting
Guiseppe Verdi, Requiem

Salzburg Festival, Zubin Mehta conducting

July 24 - Sheriff, Schoenberg, and Mahler (as above)
July 25 - Ernst Bloch, Sacred Service, featuring Thomas Hampson
July 26 - Anton Bruckner, Te Deum

James will be conducting the Rogue Valley Symphony in another collaboration with singer Natalie Merchant.

Originally the lead vocalist for the wildly popular band 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant has become the conscience of a generation, with her keenly observant and deeply felt songs. Soulful and with a “honey-colored voice,” she joins the San Francisco Symphony in a program of songs primarily from her 2010 album Leave Your Sleep, as well as new works.

James will be conducting the San Francisco Symphony in collaboration with singer Natalie Merchant.

Originally the lead vocalist for the wildly popular band 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant has become the conscience of a generation, with her keenly observant and deeply felt songs. Soulful and with a “honey-colored voice,” she joins the San Francisco Symphony in a program of songs primarily from her 2010 album Leave Your Sleep, as well as new works.

James will be conducting the San Francisco Symphony in collaboration with singer Natalie Merchant.

Originally the lead vocalist for the wildly popular band 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant has become the conscience of a generation, with her keenly observant and deeply felt songs. Soulful and with a “honey-colored voice,” she joins the San Francisco Symphony in a program of songs primarily from her 2010 album Leave Your Sleep, as well as new works.

James will be conducting the Amici New York Orchestra joined by the renowned bassist and composer Edgar Meyer. Mr. Meyer will be performing his new Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra in E. This work, premiered in 2012 shares the program with two orchestral masterpieces, Mendelssohn's effervescent and joyous "Midsummer Night's Dream Overture" and Mozart's transcendent "Requiem"

James Bagwell, conductor

Internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant joins the North Carolina Symphony for a single performance. Over the past 30 years, her distinctive voice, gift for storytelling through music and unique stage presence have earned her a place among America's most respected artists. The evening will include selections from her latest album, Leave Your Sleep, alongside new and previously recorded songs.

This final concert of our 70th Anniversary Season will feature contemporary musical gems by masters of choral composition. The concert will open with a work that The Chorale premiered in 1947, Aaron Copland's In The Beginning, for mezzo-soprano soloist and a cappella choir. Following Avner Dorman's evocative Psalm 67, Toru Takemitsu's pensive All That the Man Left Behind When He Died, Krzysztof Penderecki's ethereal Song of the Cherubim, The Chorale will conclude the season with Francis Poulenc's beloved Gloria. The sanctuary of Saint Bartholomew's Church will provide a beautiful setting for this music, conducted by The Chorale's Music Director James Bagwell.

May Festival Youth Chorus, James Bagwell conducting

TALLIS Loquebantur
SCHUTZ Unser Wandel
PÄRT Cantate Domino
DURUFLÉ Ubi Caritas

An evening of music that amplifies the splendor of this exquisite sacred space is in store for this annual May Festival sojourn to Covington’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption.

The May Festival Youth Chorus, in their 26th season, the 16th under the direction of James Bagwell, begins the evening with works that reflect various musical styles and span the centuries.

James will be preparing the chorus for this performance with The American Symphony Orchestra. The Pulitzer Prize-winning "Echoes of Time and the River" and the Grammy Award-winning "Star-Child" are featured on this tribute to the one-of-a-kind George Crumb, who explored techniques like Spoken Flute and pouring glass marbles into a piano.

Jason Danieley, Nanki-Poo
Kelli O'Hara, Yum-Yum
Christopher Fitzgerald, Ko Ko

The Collegiate Chorale
American Symphony Orchestra
Ted Sperling, Conductor

James will be preparing the Collegiate Chorale for One of the most frequently produced musical theatre pieces in history, The Mikado is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W.S. Gilbert. Debuted by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Savoy Theatre in London on March 14, 1885, The Mikado was Gilbert and Sullivan’s ninth collaborative work. Set in Japan, the opera explores the exotic, macabre, and humorous while satirizing British politics and institutions in the fictionalized foreign land of Titipu. Featuring Kelli O'Hara, Christopher Fitzgerald and Jason Danieley, our performance will be conducted by Ted Sperling.

James will be preparing the chorus for this performance with The American Symphony Orchestra. Victor Hugo's epic novel is given the operatic treatment in Franz Schmidt's lush and tuneful Notre Dame, which features a famous and beloved Intermezzo.

James will be preparing the chorus for Bizet's Djamileh on this program presented by the American Symphony Orchestra entitled "Orientalism in France". In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Europe was fascinated with Eastern culture, and many artists put their own spin on what they thought the Middle East looked and sounded like. These five French pieces show Turkey, India, Egypt, and others as they existed only in the heads of these composers.

with
Nicole Cabell, soprano
John Relyea, bass-baritone

The Collegiate Chorale
American Symphony Orchestra
James Bagwell, Conductor

Sir Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time (1941) is a unique oratorio, structured in three parts to emulate Handel’s Messiah and using traditional African-American spirituals in a form similar to Bach’s use of the chorale in his Passions, all with a decidedly twentieth-century musical language. The text of this stirring work reflects Tippett's pacifism and belief that people contain both "shadow and light". Soprano Nicole Cabell has performed this work to great critical acclaim and made it a signature piece. She will be joined by John Relyea, bass-baritone.

James will be preparing the chorus for this concert with The American Symphony Orchestra entitled "Stravinsky Outside Russia". Though he was the most well-known Russian composer of the 20th century, Stravinsky spent much of his life in Europe, and later, America. Six pieces represent his work in France, Venice, Los Angeles, and beyond.

James Bagwell conductor
Caroline Worra soprano
Leah Wool mezzo soprano
Daniel Ross tenor
Daniel Mobbs bass
May Festival Chorus Robert Porco director

No Christmas would be complete without Messiah. In this special single performance, the soaring voices of the May Festival Chorus will warm your heart this holiday season. Hallelujah!

James will be preparing the chorus for Liszt's Faust Symphony as part of the program "Parallel Lives: Liszt & Busoni" with the American Symphony Orchestra. They were both composers, virtuoso pianists, and teachers, and they first met when Busoni was just nine years old, studying in Vienna. This concert features Busoni's piano concerto that announced his arrival as masterful composer, and Liszt's symphony for the inauguration of a monument to Goethe.

The Collegiate Chorale
American Symphony Orchestra
James Bagwell, Conductor


This opera-in-concert presentation is Rossini’s enthralling 3-act French-language setting – replete with romance, intrigue, jealousy, vengeance, and acts of God – of Moses and his brother Eliezer leading the Jews out of the land of Pharaoh and into freedom, with the help of plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. The story is impassioned and the music is gorgeous. Guest artists include James Morris, Kyle Ketelsen, Angela Meade, Eric Cutler, and Marina Rebeka, with the American Symphony Orchestra

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant and guest conductor James Bagwell join the Nashville Symphony for a special evening surveying Merchant's prolific career. With her compelling artistic vision and captivating performance style, she’ll include selections from her most recent recording, Leave Your Sleep, a collection of songs adapted from poems.

James will be preparing the Collegiate Chorale for this live performance of the soundtrack to this visually stunning film. Lose yourself in Philip Glass's powerful music for the 1982 Godfrey Reggio film Koyaanisqatsi: A Life Out Of Balance, performed live by the Philharmonic and the Philip Glass Ensemble, as the landmark film is projected on a huge screen above the Avery Fisher Hall stage.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
Louis Langrée, conductor
Concert Chorale of New York
James Bagwell, director

STRAVINSKY: In memoriam Dylan Thomas
SCHUBERT: Symphony No.8 (“Unfinished”)
MOZART: Requiem

Pre-concert lecture by Peter A. Hoyt on Friday, August 26 at 6:45 in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra closes the 2011 Festival with a pairing of two incomplete masterpieces: Schubert’s famous “Unfinished” Symphony and Mozart’s powerful, enigmatic Requiem.

Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

The Festival Chorale will be featured in Sibelius's choral symphony Kullervo, Op. 7 (1891–92)

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
Iván Fischer, conductor
Lucy Crowe, soprano M|M
Concert Chorale of New York
James Bagwell, director

ALL-MOZART PROGRAM
Ave verum corpus
Symphony No.41 in C major (“Jupiter”)
Vesperae solennes de confessore

Pre-concert recitals by Ilya Yakushev, piano, at 7:00
BACH: Partita No.2

Iván Fischer, whose conducting The Washington Post calls “vibrant, alert, interested and always deeply responsive," leads the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in a sweeping all-Mozart program centered on Mozart’s final symphony, the layered, confessional, and ultimately uplifting “Jupiter.”

James will be musical director and conductor for this production, which tells the story of a young opera singer who falls in love with her voice teacher and goes on to make a career of singing his music—but at a heartbreaking personal cost. The incomparable Noël Coward wrote the music, book, and lyrics, and directed the London and Broadway premieres in 1929. Famous songs from the score include "I'll See You Again" and "If Love Were All."

James will be preparing the chorus for this this unjustly neglected late opera by Richard Strauss, in which the powerful god Jupiter and the lowly donkey driver Midas compete for the love of the beautiful Danae. The story is a Mozartean blend of comedy, romance, and drama on the themes of transformation and the acceptance of life's changes, all brilliantly illuminated by Strauss's orchestral mastery.

Return to the Verbier Festival

The Collegiate Chorale has been engaged to return again next summer, after having performed at the Verbier (Switzerland) Festival in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009. The following concerts will feature The Collegiate Chorale:

July 19: Purcell, Dido and Aeneas
Angelika Kirchschlager as Dido; Gabor Takacs -Nagy, conductor

July 21: Mendelssohn, Elijah
Thomas Quasthoff, Michael Shade; Manfred Honeck, conductor

July 22 or 23: The Collegiate Chorale Concert
James Bagwell, conductor

July 24, Puccini, Tosca
Bryn Terfel, Barbara Frittoli, Aleksandrs Antonenko:
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

The Chautauqua Institution will present Natalie Merchant in concert with The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra on Friday, July 8th at 8pm. The concert will feature music from Natalie's most recent album "Leave Your Sleep" as well as selections from her extensive catalogue.

The orchestra will be conducted by James Bagwell and feature special guests Uri Sharlin on piano and accordion and Gabriel Gordon on guitar.

James will be conducting The Amici New York Orchestra in a program presented by the OK Mozart Festival. Repertoire will include Mozart's 'Overture to Don Giovanni', Copland's 'Lincoln Portrait', Schumann's 'Symphony No.2 in C Major', and a premiere work by Callen Clark entitled 'Wily Post ~ a tone poem for Violin and Symphony Orchestra'. He will be joined by violin soloist Kyle Dillingham and narrator Joe Sears.

With Featured Guest Artist Paulo Szot
Ted Sperling, Conductor
American Symphony Orchestra
The Collegiate Chorale, James Bagwell, musical director

Featuring:
Sharon Rostorf-Zamir, soprano
The Collegiate Chorale Singers, James Bagwell, Director

The annual Passover reading of the Haggadah was particularly meaningful for German Jewish composer Paul Dessau during his exile in Paris. Suppressed for decades, this grand choral work finally gets its U.S. premiere.

Hear a musical tale about the origin of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, then enjoy a full performance and Q&A with Maestro Botstein and the orchestra, joined by the Collegiate Chorale for the final triumphant movement.

The orchestra's final concert of the 2010–11 season is an all-Beethoven affair: the delightful, genial Eighth Symphony; and the jubilant—and somewhat mysterious—Ninth, whose choral finale is lifted from Schiller's "Ode to Joy." Leon Botstein, conductor, James Bagwell, Choral Director

Cantor Angela Buchdahl, Host
The Collegiate Chorale
James Bagwell, conductor
Kennth Bowen, pianist

The camps and ghettos of the Holocaust, amid all the despair and death, gave birth to music of great power and beauty. Much of this music was passed along secretly among these communities and provided a brief respite from the hopelessness of their condition.

In this concert of choral works by composers who perished in the Holocaust, as well as contemporary composers who wrote to sustain the memory of all those who suffered, we are also reminded of man's profound ability to create beauty of out madness. Maestro Bagwell will lead The Chorale in a program entitled We Remember Them, in the magnificent sanctuary of Central Synagogue.

Singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant performs songs from her latest recording project, Leave Your Sleep (Nonesuch Records, 2010), as well as selected works from her extensive catalogue, backed by the Bard College Conservatory of Music Orchestra, conducted by James Bagwell. This special concert is a benefit for the Conservatory's Scholarship Fund and the Preparatory Division.

As a prelude to The Chorale's concert on March 10, this discussion will focus on the historical and cultural implications of music making in the camps during World War II. In addition it will explore the impact of music and its healing powers during time of extreme stress and duress.

Panelists include:
Dr. Michael Beckerman,Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music, New York University
Angela Warnick Buchdahl , Cantor,Central Synagogue
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Therapist, Author and Holocaust Orphan
James Bagwell, Music Director, The Collegiate Chorale, Professor of Music, Bard College

George Hearn, Peter Stuyvesant
Christopher Fitzgerald, Tenpin
Ted Sperling, director
American Symphony Orchestra
The Collegiate Chorale
James Bagwell, conductor

Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson teamed up for the first time to create this delightful romantic comedy. First performed in 1938, with Walter Huston in the role of Peter Stuyvesant, the work is one of Weill's deft hybrid theater pieces which lie somewhere between operetta and musical theater. Anderson, one of the most important playwrights of the early 20th century, adds bits of political satire that contribute a spicy note to this charmer of a show. The famous pop standard, September Song, first appeared in Knickerbocker Holiday.

This performance by The Collegiate Chorale will feature two-time Tony winner George Hearn as Peter Stuyvesant and 2010 Drama Desk Award winner Christopher Fitzgerald as the faithful sidekick, Tenpin. Broadway's multi-talented Ted Sperling, winner of both Tony and Drama Desk awards, will direct and The Chorale's Music Director, James Bagwell, will conduct.

Fanny Mendelssohn — Scenes from the Bible
Louis Spohr — The Last Judgment

Communal singing and sacred oratorios were a vital part of Europe’s religious resurgence in the 1800s. The two major works on this program are by Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix’s sister; and Louis Spohr, whose contemporaries found him as masterful as Beethoven and Mozart.

American Symphony Orchestra
The Collegiate Chorale
James Bagwell, Conductor

With: Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano, Erin Morley, soprano, Eric Owens, baritone

International artist and Musical America's 2009 Vocalist of the Year, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe performs with the Collegiate Chorale in Brahms' lush Alto Rhapsody. Then Metropolitan Opera star Eric Owens and soprano Erin Morley, who is quickly rising to the top echelon of emerging young artists, will join the Chorale to perform in Brahms' transcendent masterpiece, A German Requiem.

Othmar Schoeck — Buried Alive
Mátyás Seiber — Ulysses

James will be preparing the Collegiate Chorale Singers for this performance of some rare but potent works. One of the most influential authors of his time, Joyce was also a composer and singer proficient in many sorts of music. Experience the music of his favorite composers, along with a cantata inspired by his most famous work.

James will be the choral director for this performance of Schmidt's magnificent oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, which reveals that the reaction against modernism itself inspired great music.

James will be the choral director for this rare performance of Mozart's Davidde penitente,whose music was constructed from Mozart’s unfinished Mass in C minor.

James will be conducting Oscar Straus’s charming 1908 chamber opera, which is a fusion of Viennese operetta and British wit, based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man. The music is enchanting, and the story is lively and amusing—all in all, The Chocolate Soldier is a perfect operetta for a summer celebration of early 20th-century Austrian musical works.

James will be the chorus master for this lush production of The Distant Sound. Hailed early in his career as the most significant musical-dramatist after Wagner, the Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher Franz Schreker (1878–1934) quickly became a central figure in the remarkably fertile Viennese atmosphere that produced composers such as Schoenberg, Berg, Korngold, and Zemlinsky, among others. His extraordinary musical works, which draw on an aesthetic that is a mixture of romanticism, naturalism, expressionism, and Neue Sachlichkeit, are frequently heard in Europe but are largely unfamiliar to U.S. audiences.

James Bagwell will conduct George F. Handel’s Israel in Egypt, featuring Sari Gruber, soprano; Brian Asawa, alto; and Rufus Müller, tenor and The American Symphony Orchestra. Darkness over the earth, water turning to blood, plagues of jumping frogs, buzzing insects, and hailstones, an oncoming mighty storm, and the parting of the Red Sea while hordes of horsemen and chariots are engulfed – such imagery calls for the masterful hand of George F. Handel. In this choral tour de force, some of the most vivid images of the Exodus story are recounted during the first segment, which is then followed by the beautiful and exultant second part, The Song of Moses. At times tender, simple, stately, crashing, complex and colossal, Israel in Egypt is one of Handel’s monumental achievements, featuring the chorus in an unprecedented way with lovely and descriptive solos and duets accentuating their story throughout.

James will be the guest conductor for this concert with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, as part of Hear the World with the TSO's 2009/2010 Concert Season. This program is to include Chabrier's Espana, Revueltas' Sensamaya, Moncayo's Huapango, Piazzolla's Oblivion, Ginastera's Danses from Estancia and Falla's Three Corner Hat.

James will be preparing the chorus for this oratorio, the greatest poetic rendering of the story of the man who sells his soul to the devil, set to music by a composer who knew very well what it is like to be haunted by demons. On the occasion of the bicentennial of Schumann’s birth, ASO completes its trilogy that began with Manfred and Das Paradies und die Peri, with the third of Schumann’s great dramatic oratorios.

James will be preparing the Dessoff Choirs for one of the best known works of the Western repertoire, Beethoven's great masterpiece Symphony No. 9 in D minor, as part of the Beethoven Then and Now series at Lincoln Center.

James will conduct The Dessoff Choirs in a program of new works, including Kyle Gann's Transcendental Sonnets, Lukas Foss' Psalm and a world premiere of Harold Faberman's Talk.

James will conduct the Berkshire Bach Singers & Players in parts 4, 5, and 6 of Bach's monumental work. Originally comprised of 6 cantatas, the second half of the work will be presented here featuring Rufus Müller, tenor, Charles Sprawls, bass, Teresa Buchholz, mezzo-soprano, and Megan Taylor, soprano.

On December 1, 2009 at 7pm at Carnegie Hall, join James Bagwell, Roger Rees and many well-known friends as they lead A Jubilant Song, a celebration of The Collegiate Chorale’s remarkable history of exceptional conductors, noteworthy commissions and premieres, and multi-faceted choral programming. As the new Music Director, Mr. Bagwell gives tribute to his predecessors and ushers in a new era of The Collegiate Chorale. Works to be performed include the Beethoven Choral Fantasy, Verdi arias, A Jubilant Song by Dello Joio, and excerpts from Bernstein’s A White House Cantata. Featuring Salvatore Licitra, tenor; Emily Pulley, soprano; Anita Johnson, soprano; Robert Mack, tenor; Erin Morley, soprano; Jenny Lin, piano; and Roger Rees, emcee. A benefit dinner with Mr. Bagwell and guest artists at Carnegie Hall’s Rohatyn Room will follow the concert.

James will conduct the Dessoff Choirs in Bloch's Sacred Service which is a complete musical setting of the liturgical prayers for the Sabbath and dramatizes a spiritual journey taken not only by Jews, but by all people. Of this work, Bloch himself wrote: "Though intensely Jewish in roots, the message seems to me, above all, a gift of Israel to the whole of mankind. It symbolized for me far more than a Jewish service, but in its great simplicity and variety, it embodies a philosophy acceptable to all men." Come experience this spiritual journey with The Dessoff Choirs and bass soloist Charles Perry Sprawls.

James will be preparing the chorus for this opera-in-concert performance of Vincent D'Indy's Fervaal. D’Indy’s great opera was inspired by Wagner, but Debussy and Dukas thought Fervaal was even better than Wagner’s epics. Continuing in the vein of Dukas’s Ariane et Barbe-bleue, Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus, and Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys, ASO presents another rare masterpiece from the golden age of French opera.

James will be preparing the Concert Chorale of New York for the closing night performance of this year's Mostly Mozart Festival.

James will conduct the Bard Chorale in full program of choral music to include works by Richard Wagner (1813–83); Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-94); Anton Bruckner (1824-96); Johannes Brahms (1833-97); and Franz Liszt (1811-86)

James will be the chorus master for this rarely performed work which quickly became one of the most stunning successes in the history of the Paris Opéra. It is majestic opera at its purest, featuring a large cast and chorus, all against a sobering backdrop of bigotry and hatred.

James will be preparing the Dessoff Symphonic Choir for 4 performances of this seminal work. More than 300 artists fill an expanded stage in the crowning performances of Lorin Maazel’s acclaimed Mahler cycle and his triumphant career as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. “Deeply impressive and continuously exciting,” said The New York Times of Maazel’s Mahler, “Clearly, he should keep the Mahler coming.” This once-in-a-lifetime production is not to be missed!

James will be preparing the Dessoff Symphonic Choir for these monumental performances of Britten's War Requiem conducted by Lorin Maazel. An instant classic when it premiered at the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral in 1962, the shattering impact of this unflinching cry against war is delivered in all its power by two orchestras, two choruses, and a trio of exceptional soloists.

The exquisitely beautiful and acoustically superb Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption will again be the site of truly incredible music-making, starting with a performance by the outstanding May Festival Youth Chorus of striking
a cappella works from the 16th and 20th centuries.

Looking back to William Billings and other early American composers, this intimately-scaled program explores the development of choral music in this country from the late 18th through the early 20th century, when Charles Ives composed his pivotal 90th Psalm. Featured works include shape-note hymns, Hora novissima by Horatio Parker, and three works by Ives: Psalm 67, Psalm 90, and an excerpt from his cantata The Celestial Country. Period readings lend additional context in depicting how tradition and innovation have shaped the American choral landscape. Come be a part of Dessoff's first live recording in years.

James will be preparing the chorus for this opera-in-concert performance of two of Dallapiccola's most affecting works stand as monumental moral testaments. Night Flight was written in response to the rise of fascism, and is based on the work of French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery (of Little Prince Fame). The Prisoner, Dallapiccola's one-act opera of 1948, explores the ideas of torture and hope in a world without justice.

James prepares the chorus for a performance of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer, conducted by the composer. Part of the FOCUS! 2009 California:A Century of New Music concert series at Juilliard, which features music from California, from earlier 20th-century radicals such as Henry Cowell, John Cage, and Lou Harrison, and the many illustrious members of the next generations such as Morton Subotnick, Roger Reynolds, John Adams, Robert Erickson, Leon Kirchner, and Terry Riley, to the younger composers of today.

James will conduct the Berkshire Bach singers, orchestra and soloists in this seasonal work comprised of six cantatas.

From the full-bodied Renaissance polyphony of Thomas Weelkes’ Hosanna to the Son of David to Norman Dinerstein’s moving portrayal of David’s grief over the death of his son, When David Heard, this concert spans centuries and continents to present a lyrical portrait of the Biblical hero David. The program concludes with Arthur Honegger’s masterful oratorio, King David, which employs chorus, orchestra, soloists, and actors to portray the life of this fabled leader.

James leads the TSO through selected orchestral scores from some of Disney's finest movies including: Tarzen, Little Mermaid, Hercules, Mary Poppins, Beauty and the Beast, Rescuers Down Under, Alladin, Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King

James will be preparing the chorus for this concert performance of Edouard Lalo's grandest work, tells the tale of the mythical sunken city of Ys, a subject that has inspired writers, musicians, artists (and more recently, video programmers) for centuries. The masterpiece premiered in 1888 to great acclaim, and influenced French opera for a generation.

For the closing concert of the Mostly Mozart Festival, James will be preparing The Concert Chorale of New York for Mozart's "Mass in C minor".

James will be preparing the Bard Festival Chorale for a program featuring works by Prokofiev, Dukelsky and Rachmaninoff.

James will be conducting the Bard Festival Chorale in a program featuring music from Rachmaninoff's "All-Night Vigil" and Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms".

James will be preparing the Concert Chorale of New York for this concert version of Mozart's "La Clemenza di Tito" with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Edward Gardner.

James conducts George S. Kaufman's 1931 political satire with songs by George and Ira Gershwin

James conducts 3 productions in rep: Sondhiem's "Into the Woods", Bernstein's "Candide", and Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance".

James will be preparing the Concert Chorale of New York for "I Do", The Stravinsky Project Part III (2007) (U.S. Premiere),
dance choreographed by Michael Clark, set to Stravinsky's "Les Noces".

The Festival's annual Cathedral concert this year celebrates James' tenth anniversary as director of the May Festival Youth Chorus. The works he has selected represent highlights from his time with the group, which he has shaped into an acclaimed ensemble that has been featured on NPR's "From the Top", a program that showcases the best of the best of today's young performers.

James will conduct Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" with the Berkshire Bach Society orchestra, chorus and soloists.

James will conduct the Dessoff choirs in a program that includes Dominick Argento’s graphic "I Hate and I Love", based on poems by Catullus; Leonard Bernstein’s inimitable "Missa Brevis", adapted from his score for Jean Anouilh’s "The Lark"; and Luigi Dallapiccola’s anti-fascist "Canti de prigionia".

James will conduct two evenings of opera, directed by Doug Fitch, featuring the world premiere of the Conservatory-commissioned one-act opera "A Bird in Your Ear", by David Bruce, and the first fully staged abridged, one-act version of Virgil Thomson’s "Four Saints in Three Acts".

James will be preparing the chorus for the US premiere of this unique work by Ferdinand Hiller.

James will conduct the Dessoff choirs in two historic settings in this wide-ranging survey of American choral work that moves from the folk traditions of shape-note hymns to the concert music of the 19th and 20th centuries.