Daniel Moody. Contributed photo
On Sunday, May 20 at 4:15 pm, Bach@415 Concert Series at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church presents a rising star in the countertenor world, Daniel Moody and internationally-acclaimed concert organist Dr. Bálint Karosi.
Directed by the ever fervent J. Michael Roush, St. Barnabas’ acclaimed music director, Bach@415 features an exquisite array of choral works and organ music from the sacred Baroque period in the church’s contemporary sanctuary located at 954 Lake Avenue, Greenwich, CT.
Recently Roush has introduced many Greenwichites and thosebeyond, to a myriad of rarely heard and well-known Bach cantatas as part of the popular Bach@415 Concert Series. The Pentecost Vespers Concert opens with J.S. Bach’s Cantata No. 35, Geist und Seele wird verwirret, (“Spirit and Soul become confused”), performed by vocal soloist countertenor Daniel Moody accompanied by the Saint Peter’s Bach Collegium and St. Barnabas Choir. The program concludes with award-winning concert organist and composer Bálint Karosi performing G.F. Handel’s Organ Concerti Op 4 and Op 6.
“The music of these two Baroque masters promises to resound jubilantly on the Richards, Fowkes & Co. Opus 1 pipe organ,” said Roush. Sitting high in the rear gallery, its sonorities bound through the modern spaces of the church with extraordinary elan. “What’s more, we are especially thrilled by the presence of two exceptional musicians.”
Praised by the New York Times as having a vocal resonance, which makes a profoundly startling impression and for his “vivid and powerful voice” by The Boston Musical Intelligencer, Moody is well known this season for his exciting debuts with Portland Baroque Orchestra (David Hill conducting) and the Great Music in a Great Space Series (Kent Tritle conducting), and he recently won a $5,000 prize from the George London Foundation this past February.
Born in Budapest, Dr. Bálint Karosi is an active composer, concert organist, conductor and harpsichordist.
Winner of the Leipzig International Bach Festival and other competitions, Karosi has appeared as recitalist at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Béla Bartok National Concert Hall, the Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Boston Early Music Fesitval. His performances, including his Concerto for Organ and Symphony have been featured on American Public Media’s nationally syndicated radio program Pipedreams. In 2015, Karosi was appointed as Cantor at Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in midtown Manhattan, where he oversees an ambitious musical program, with frequent performances of choral and orchestral works.
Tickets for the Bach@415 Concert Series are on sale now and may be purchased online at www.stbarnabasgreenwich.org/concerts.html. Any remaining tickets will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis on May 20 when doors open at 3:30 p.m.
An American countertenor and a lover of early music, Daniel Moody has performed with acclaimed groups Les Violons du Roy (Quebec City) and Apollo’s Fire (Cleveland). He has performed at the Boston, Indianapolis and Washington Early Music Festivals and early music/contemporary innovative groups Mountainside Baroque (Maryland), La Fiocco(Pennsylvania), Antico Moderno (Boston) and Cantata Profana (NYC). A graduate of the prestigious Yale Voxtet – resident at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music – he has performed as a soloist at such venues as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, London’s St. John’s Smith Square and, Cambridge’s Trinity College, working with conductors David Hill, Simon Carrington, Masaaki Suzuki, and Matthew Halls. His performances have been broadcast live in concert on BBC Radio 3 in the United Kingdom, on Boston’s WGBH, Indiana’s WFIU, and WSHU’s Sunday Baroque.
Moody is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory (BM ’14), Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music (MM ‘16) and has won several awards which include Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (Regional Finalist), George London Competition (2017 & 2018), Handel Aria Competition (2nd place), Rochester Oratorio Society Classical Idol (3rd place), New York Oratorio Society Competition, and the Russell Wonderlic Competition (1st place).
Dr. Bálint Karosi, composer and organist, has won first prizes at the J. S. Bach Competition in Leipzig, the Dublin and Miami International Organ Competitions, and is the recipient of the 2014 Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has recorded four CDs, The Art of Fugue and the Clavier-übung III by Bach and an album of his own compositions, released by Hungaroton and Dulzian Records.
Bálint currently serves as cantor at Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in midtown Manhattan, where he oversees an ambitious musical program with frequent performances of choral and orchestral works, including performances of J.S. Bach’s Passions on Good Friday. He founded the Saint Peter’s Bach Collegium.
Bálint’s commissions include an overture for the Hungarian State Opera, a Reformation Symphony, two organ concerti, a harpsichord and a triple concerto, a bassoon sonata and three cantatas and concertos for strings. He is under management with Penny Lorenz Artist Management. Bálint studied at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Conservatoire de Genève, the Oberlin Conservatory, and earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at Yale University.
Michael Roush was appointed the Director of Music at St. Barnabas in 1979 after graduating from Juilliard. His long tenure has produced decades of remarkable concerts from large-scale pieces with orchestra to intimate a cappella works. In addition, he has performed solo organ concerts at many churches and halls in this country and Europe.
Since 1956, St. Barnabas Episcopal Church has served as a backcountry center of the Episcopal Church in Greenwich, CT welcoming friends and neighbors attracted to its natural beauty and its peaceful, quiet, and social embrace.