Patrick Dupré Quigley, conductor
Tigran Buniatyan, harpsichord
Kathryn Mueller, soprano
Stephanie Sánchez, mezzo soprano
Joshua Blue, tenor
Joshua Conyers, baritone
The Phoenix Symphony Chorus, Dr. Thomas Bookhout, chorus master
George Frederich Handel’s Messiah is the most famous oratorio ever written. Join us this December for the beloved Holiday tradition that thrills and inspires concertgoers year after year. Enjoy the full oratorio with solo arias such as “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” and “The Trumpet Shall Sound” and popular choruses such as “For Unto Us A Child Is Born” and the “Hallelujah” chorus. Guest conductor Patrick Dupré Quigley leads soloists, the Phoenix Symphony and the Phoenix Symphony Chorus in the timeless classic.
Holiday Season Sponsor
About Patrick Dupré Quigley, guest conductor
Quigley is known for his engaging performances of historically-informed programming that draw in new audiences and delight regular concertgoers. A ceaseless advocate for a more inclusive concert experience, Quigley’s programs regularly span more than 1000 years of musical history. Through recordings, performances, and new editions, Quigley has championed the culturally relevant voices of Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, the 11th-century polymath and saint Hildegard of Bingen, and 18th-century Cuban composer Esteban Salas y Castro. Quigley deeply respects music traditions outside the Western European canon and has developed concerts and collaborations highlighting the music of the Babylonian Jews, New Orleans’s Black Gospel tradition, Latin Pop, and the Baroque music of North and South America.
Recent and upcoming programs include Bach’s orchestral suites and violin concerti with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Gil Shaham at Carnegie Hall, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and La Servante Maîtresse with Opera Lafayette at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, return engagements with the Charlotte Symphony and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, conducting debuts with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and scenes from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Castor et Pollux with Seraphic Fire.
Other guest conducting invitations have come from The Cleveland Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony, ARTIS Naples, New Jersey Symphony, New World Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and the Utah Symphony.
Quigley, along with co-founder Joanne N. Schulte, established the indie-classical ensemble Seraphic Fire in 2002. The ensemble presents a full season of live concerts of historical and contemporary music in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Collier counties. Seraphic Fire invests in its own local, regional, state, and national communities through its education programs running from 3rd grade through post-graduate level students. The ensemble has most recently commissioned works by Alvaro Bermudez, Sydney Guillaume, and Tawnie Olson; and has given modern, regional, national, international, and recording premieres of contemporary and historical works by Hildegard of Bingen, Shawn Crouch, Susan Labarr, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Nico Muhly, Esteban Salas y Castro, Greg Spears, Christopher Theofanidis, and Ileana Perez Velazquez, among others. The Seraphic Fire Media recording catalog contains 16 titles, representing diverse musical voices: Two titles have received Grammy nominations. The ensemble has also recorded with the international pop star Shakira.
Quigley holds an undergraduate degree in Music Theory and History from the University of Notre Dame, studying under Daniel Stowe, Alexander Blachly and Walter Ginter. Quigley studied conducting with Marguerite Brooks while earning a Master of Music degree at the Yale School of Music. He has assisted Michael Tilson Thomas in rehearsals, performances, and recordings at the San Francisco Symphony. Quigley is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and currently resides in Washington, D.C.
About Tigran Buniatyan, harpsichord
Tigran Buniatyan received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Organ and Harpsichord from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and BM & MM in Musicology from Yerevan State Conservatory. Among his teachers are James David Christie, Arvid Gast, Marie-Louise Langlais, Jean Baptiste Robin, Mark Edwards and Anna Bakunts.
Tigran Buniatyan also participated in masterclasses with Benjamin Alard, Lisa Crawford and Guy Bovet.
After graduating from Yerevan State Conservatory in 2014 Tigran Buniatyan was appointed as the vice-principal of Sayat-Nova School of Music in Yerevan. During his studies at Oberlin Conservatory Tigran Buniatyan worked as the Assistant Curator of organs. From 2017-2021 he has served as the Music Director at Emmanuel Lutheran Church (Elyria, Ohio) and St. Paul Lutheran Church (Amherst, Ohio).
As a performer on historical keyboard instruments, Tigran had participated in numerous international music festivals and conferences, including concert series with Matteo Imbruno, Beth Wenstrom, Jeanne Lamon. Tigran Buniatyan’s repertoire is mostly consisted of works of The North German Organ School. Pursuing his interests in this field, Tigran has performed on many historical organs across Northern Europe.
Currently Tigran Buniatyan is a candidate for a Doctor’s degree in Organ and works as the Teaching Assistant for Kimberly Marshall at Arizona State University.
Since 2021 Tigran Buniatyan is the Director of Music at Mountain View Lutheran Church (Phoenix, Arizona).
Tigran Buniatyan is a prize winner at numeral international competitions. He has been featured by the New York Times and his recordings have been broadcasted on American Public Media.
About Kathryn Mueller, soprano
Kathryn’s favorite concert works include Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano, Haydn’s Creation, Bach’s St. John Passion, and anything by Mozart or Handel. She collaborates as a guest artist with the award-winning early music group Wayward Sisters, and has also sung operatic roles for Arizona Opera, the North Carolina HIP Music Festival, and Bach Collegium San Diego.
Kathryn received a 2015 GRAMMY nomination for her solo work on True Concord’s album Far in the Heavens. She has also recorded two GRAMMY-nominated albums with Seraphic Fire, and is featured as a soloist on recordings by New Trinity Baroque, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Tucson Chamber Artists, and Seraphic Fire, including Seraphic Fire’s best-selling Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, which reached the top of the iTunes classical chart.
In 2011 Kathryn was one of four fellows in the Adams Vocal Master Class at the Carmel Bach Festival. She was a finalist in the 2012 and 2013 Oratorio Society of New York’s Solo Competition, winning the Frances MacEachron Award in 2013. Kathryn’s soprano duo Les Sirènes was one of 6 finalist groups in Early Music America’s 2012 Baroque Performance Competition.
About Stephanie Sánchez, mezzo soprano
Sánchez opened her 2023-24 season in her debut with Kentucky Opera performing the role of the Witch in Hänsel und Gretel. She also makes debuts with Intermountain Opera Bozeman as Nettie Fowler in Carousel, and with Opera Omaha in the role of as Frida in Gabriela Lena Frank’s El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego. She returns to Arizona Opera to reprise the role of Carlotta de Obragón in abbreviated performances of Zorro for the company’s New Works Festival.
As a resident principal artist with Opera San José for two seasons, she performed the roles of Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Hänsel in Hänsel and Gretel, and Azucena in Il Trovatore.. She was selected as a Marion Pullin Studio Artist with Arizona Opera where she sang the roles of Persephone in Hercules vs. Vampires, Paquette in Candide, Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Flosshilde in Das Rheingold, and returned to the company to cover the title role in Maria de Buenos Aires and sing Baroness Nica in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird.
Born and raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Sánchez received her Artist Diploma from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and her master’s degree in vocal performance from New Mexico State University.
About Joshua Blue, tenor
Last season, Mr. Blue made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut as the tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony #9 performed at the Hollywood Bowl with Eva Ollikainen on the podium. He also returned to both the Metropolitan Opera to sing the Royal Herald in David McVicar’s production of Don Carlo under the baton of Carlo Rizzi and cover Chevalier de la Force in John Dexter’s production of Dialogues des Carmélites led by Bertrand de Billy as well as Opera Philadelphia to make his role debut as Rodolfo in the Yuval Sharon production of La bohème, a role he later reprised at the Glimmerglass Festival in the summer before joining the cast of Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love to sing Fenton as part of Bard’s SummerScape with Leon Botstein on the podium. Carnegie Hall appearances featured Handel’s Messiah with Musica Sacra and Beethoven’s Symphony #9 for the United Nations General Assembly. Additional concert debuts included the Cincinnati May Festival for Mozart’s Requiem conducted by James Conlon; American Symphony Orchestra performances of Ethel Smyth’s Mass in D led by Leon Botstein; and Temple University for Adolphus Hailstork’s Done Made My Vow. Mr. Blue also performed in the world-premiere of Another City, a new commission by Houston Grand Opera featuring composer Jeremy Howard Beck and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann.
About Joshua Conyers, baritone
George Frideric Handel: Messiah, HWV 56
1. Sinfonia
2. Accompagnato: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people (Tenor)
3. Air: Ev’ry valley shall be exalted (Tenor)
4. Chorus: And the glory, the glory of the Lord (Chorus)
5. Accompagnato: Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts
(Baritone)
6. Air: But who may abide the day of His coming (Mezzo
Soprano)
7. Chorus: And He shall purify (Chorus)
Recitative: Behold, a virgin shall conceive (Mezzo Soprano)
8. Air and Chorus: O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion
(Mezzo Soprano, Chorus)
9. Accompagnato: For, behold, darkness (Baritone)
10. Air: The people that walked in darkness (Baritone)
11. Chorus: For unto us a child is born (Chorus)
12. Pifa: Pastoral Symphony
Recitative: There were shepherds abiding in the field
(Soprano)
13. Accompagnato: And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon
them (Soprano)
Recitative: And the angel said unto them (Soprano)
14. Accompagnato: And suddenly there was with the angel
(Soprano)
15. Chorus: Glory to God in the highest (Chorus)
16. Air: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion (Soprano)
Recitative: Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened (Mezzo
Soprano)
17. Duet: He shall feed his fl ock like a shepherd (Mezzo
Soprano and Soprano)
18. Chorus: His yoke is easy, His burden is light (Chorus)
INTERMISSION
19. Chorus: Behold the Lamb of God (Chorus)
20. Air: He was despised (Mezzo Soprano)
21. Chorus: Surely He hath borne our griefs (Chorus)
22. Chorus: And with His stripes we are healed (Chorus)
23. Chorus: All we, like sheep, have gone astray (Chorus)
24. Accompagnato: All they that see him, laugh him to scorn
(Tenor)
25. Chorus: He trusted in God (Chorus)
26. Accompagnato: Thy rebuke hath broken (Tenor)
27. Arioso: Behold and see (Tenor)
28. Accompagnato: He was cut off (Soprano)
29. Air: But Thou didst not leave (Soprano)
36. Air: Why do the nations rage? (Baritone)
37. Chorus: Let us break their bonds (Chorus)
Recitative: He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh them to
scorn (Tenor)
38. Air: Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron (Tenor)
39. Chorus: Hallelujah! (Chorus)
40. Air: I know that my Redeemer liveth (Soprano)
41. Chorus: Since by man came death (Chorus)
42. Accompagnato: Behold I tell you a mystery (Baritone)
43. Air: The trumpet shall sound (Baritone)
46. Air: If God be for us (Soprano)
47. Chorus: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain (Chorus)
Chorus: Amen (Chorus)
