Westminster Symphonic Choir performs with The New York Philharmonic

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The Westminster Symphonic Choir performed Christopher Rouse’s Requiem with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert Monday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. at Carnegie Hall. The concert, which was presented as part of the Spring for Music Festival, was also broadcast live on WQXR radio and online at www.wqxr.org.

Christopher Rouse is one of America's most prominent composers of orchestral music. His works have won a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award, as well as election to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. Rouse has created a body of work perhaps unequalled in its emotional intensity. The Baltimore Sun has written: "When the music history of the late 20th century is written, I suspect the explosive and passionate music of Rouse will loom large."

Composed of all of the juniors, seniors and graduate students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, the Westminster Symphonic Choir has recorded and performed with major orchestras under virtually every internationally acclaimed conductor of the past 78 years. For its first major orchestral collaboration in 1934 legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski brought the Philadelphia Orchestra to Princeton to perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Westminster Symphonic Choir in the Princeton University Chapel to celebrate the opening of the Westminster Choir College campus.

Recognized as one of the world’s leading choral ensembles, the choir has sung more than 350 performances with the New York Philharmonic alone.