On December 15th, the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus presented a Christmas Concert celebrating its 10th Anniversary as a NYC community chorus.
The concert took place at Good Shepherd-Faith Church, 152 W 66th St, New York City.
The program featured the Mozart Coronation Mass, K 317, and included excerpts from Handel’s Messiah as well as a selection of Christmas Spirituals and Carols.
The Schiller Institute NYC Chorus began on December 20th, 2014 as a Sing-Along performance of excerpts of Handel’s Messiah. The impromptu concert was organized by Schiller Institute musician Diane Sare in answer to the outrage over the Staten Island Grand Jury decision on the death-by-suffocation of Eric Garner, which had come in the wake of the Ferguson, MO riots after the killing of an unarmed African-American teenager, and which threatened to create dangerous divisions and violence in the City of New York. The concert was dedicated to “The Sanctity of Every Human Life.” Tragically, just as the chorus had opened the program by singing “Dona Nobis Pacem” (Give Us Peace), two police officers were murdered in Brooklyn as they sat in their patrol car.
The Schiller Institute has been performing and organizing for peace and harmony in the nation and the world ever since, wielding the power of classical art to help bring humanity together through a dialogue of cultures.
