Getting to Know Us

In September, the Mineola Choral Society began rehearsals for our 76th concert season with a membership of  80 singers from over 30 Long Island communities (from Brooklyn to West Islip). Through the years, MCS has remained true to its core mission, bringing  amateur singers  together for weekly rehearsals in a congenial atmosphere, culminating in three concerts with full orchestra each season.  Over the years the group has performed classical masterworks, Broadway and American Songbook favorites, and choral works in a broad range of styles. Below is a synopsis of our recent concerts.

Spring Concert 2023

Our 75th Anniversary concert season concluded with a celebratory performance of Haydn's incredible oratorio, The Creation, which was told by three archangels, Gabriel (soprano Tanya Roberts), Uriel (tenor, Bryce Westervelt) and Raphael (bass  Ned Hanlon), in recitatives and in arias. Our 80-voice chorus was the choir of angels that explodes into jubilant hymns of praise, glorifying their maker. This positive and uplifting oratorio was, in Haydn's own view, his greatest composition and the culmination—the pinnacle of his life's work.

Winter Concert 2023

Our 2023 Winter Concert featured Antonio Vivaldi's popular choral work, Gloria, and  Padre G.B. Martini's rarely performed but incredibly beautiful, Domine Ad Adjuvandum Me Festina. We also performed Peter Knight's arrangement of John David's You Are a New Day, which was originally written for the King's Singers, and  Elaine Hagenberg's deeply satisfying O Love. We invited the A Cappella Singers from Mineola High School to perform two selections and to join the chorus in the finale, a celebratory  declaration of love and hope, Unclouded Day by Rev. J.K. Alwood arranged by Shawn Kirchner.

Spring Concert 2022

After a two-year absence due to Covid, the Mineola Choral Society returned to Corpus Christi Church to perform our Spring Concert, Our Prayer for Peace. The concert opened with the world premier of Thomas W. Jones' Lamentations, which speaks to the desolation and sadness following the fall of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C. It is a stark parallel not only to the emptiness of our cities, and our periodic feelings of helplessness and despair during the pandemic lockdowns, but also to the ruinous destruction of so many cities in Ukraine, and the death, pain and anguish of their people as the war raged on. This was followed by Mozart's Requiem, a memorial to all who have died during this tragic time. The conclusion of the concert from the resurrection section of Handel's Messiah spoke to our search for a return to peace and normalcy.

Winter Concert 2020

In January of 2020, the 80-voice chorus and orchestra of the Mineola Choral Society united three beloved musical compositions from the Classical, Romantic and Modern eras to form our Winter Concert at Corpus Christi RC Church in Mineola. The program opened with Mozart’s Mass in C major, K. 317, generally regarded as Mozart’s greatest complete Mass setting. This was followed by an orchestral interlude featuring Samuel Barber’s hauntingly-beautiful Adagio for Strings which received national acclaim when it was premiered by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1938. The finale of the afternoon was Gabriel Fauré’s inspiring Requiem in D minor, opus 48, which, in contrast to the more grand Requiems of Verdi or Brahms, is distinguished by its comfort and solace, forgoing the theatrical to focus on sorrow, hope joy and peace.

Spring Concert 2019

Titled The Music of the Masters: LET FREEDOM RING!, this concert continued our plea for liberty and brotherhood throughout the world from the sublime a cappella opening of Max Janowski's Sim Shalom (Create Peace) to the the Finale of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Ode to Joy). With and soprano Adrienne Patino Dunn, mezzo-soprano Janara Kellerman, tenor Joshua Benevento, bass Ned Hanlon, and a 40-piece orchestra, the chorus also presented excerpts from Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) and selections from part 1 of George Frideric Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Following Max Christian Friedrich Bruch’s Kol Nidrei featuring solo clarinetist David Gould and the orchestra, the chorus returned to perform "Preghiera" (Prayer) from Gioachino Rossini’s Mosé in Egitto, "Va, pensiero" from Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco and the finale, Ode to Joy.

Winter Concert 2019

This concert marked our return to Corpus Christi RC Church in Mineola where over 350 people came to hear the chorus and orchestra perform Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater, op. 58 with soloists Eileen Mackintosh, soprano, Janara Kellerman, mezzo-soprano, Joshua Benevento, tenor, and Edward Hanlon, bass. The sensitivity and intensity of the chorus and orchestra poignantly portrayed the grief and suffering of the Virgin Mary as she watched her son being tortured and crucified to his death. The concert began with “O Nata Lux,” the a cappella third movement of Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna.

Listen to MCS: Excerpt from Dvořák's Stabat Mater, Movement 1 performed January, 2019 at Corpus Christi Church, Mineola, NY

with Eileen Mackintosh, Soprano, Janara Kellerman, Mezzo-soprano, Joshua Benevento, Tenor, and Ned  Hanlon, Bass