St. Bartholomew’s Choir
Dr. Paolo Bordignon, Organist and Choirmaster
St. Bartholomew’s Choir is a professional ensemble that sings for the 11 am Sunday service year-round and on feast days including Advent Lessons & Carols, Candlelight Carols, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Tenebrae, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil of Easter, and Easter Day.
Throughout the year, the choir takes on a featured role in a series of Sunday 11 am services called A Choral Feast singing major works, often with chamber orchestra. Recently presented works include orchestral Mass & Requiem settings of Duruflé, Fauré, Mozart, Schubert, and Haydn; cantatas and motets of Johann Sebastian Bach; as well as Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, Jonathan Dove’s Missa Brevis, Mendelssohn’s Deutsche Liturgie, and Vierne’s Messe Solennelle.
In 2020, while the Coronavirus made it unsafe to sing together in person, St. Bartholomew’s Choir became a leader in “virtual” choral performances. As stand-alone offerings on YouTube and Facebook outside of liturgies, they have earned over 750,000 views online.
Outside of their liturgical role, the Choir sings on the Great Music at St. Bart’s concert series, including the annual Joyous Christmas Concert which has welcomed the Empire Brass, Sylvia McNair, and Jessye Norman as guest artists. The musicians of St. Bartholomew’s Choir frequently appear at many of the city’s most prestigious venues: from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, to Broadway stages and New York’s finest jazz clubs.
April 2022 saw the release of a new CD recording, Stokowski and St. Bartholomew's Choir – A Prodigious Pairing, on the MSR label, produced thanks to the support of St. Bartholomew’s Conservancy. The recording is available on all online platforms (Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, YouTube).
They can also be heard on three recordings on the Ethereal label: O, for a thousand tongues to sing; Sing, choirs of angels, and A child is born in Bethlehem. The choir has been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today as well as CBS, CNN and CNBC. A recent TV appearance on Now hear this, presented by PBS Great Performances, was hailed as “among the highlights of the show” by the Wall Street Journal.
Recent Choral and Organ Repertoire
2022-2023 Advent to Trinity [pdf]
2021-2022 Advent through Last Pentecost [pdf]
2020-2021 Advent through Last Pentecost [pdf]
2019-2020 Advent through Last Pentecost [pdf]
2019 Epiphany through Last Pentecost [pdf]
2018 Last Pentecost, Advent, and Christmas [pdf]
St. Bart’s Singers
Paolo Bordignon, Organist and Choirmaster
St. Bart’s Singers is a talented and dedicated ensemble of volunteers, with professional section leaders, who sing every Sunday for our 9 am Eucharist service in the round. The Singers offer a wide range of choral repertoire from plainsong, to Tudor and Renaissance music (Tallis, Byrd, Palestrina), spirituals (arr. Dawson, Burleigh), to modern masterworks (Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninoff, Britten).
St. Bart’s Singers rehearse on Wednesday nights (September to June) and they join St. Bartholomew’s Choir and Choristers for a number of festival services. These include Advent Lessons and Carols, Candlelight Carols, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Palm Sunday, the Great Vigil of Easter, and Easter Day with brass and percussion. In the past year, they have also offered Choral Evensong, as well as a Mozart orchestral Mass as part of our Choral Feast series.
To arrange an audition, contact the Music Office at 212-378-0226 or email Dr. Paolo Bordignon, Organist and Choirmaster.
St. Bartholomew’s Choristers
Alexander Pattavina, Associate Organist and Choirmaster
Visit our Chorister Web PagE
Do you know a child who loves to sing? St. Bartholomew’s Choristers is inviting participants for the next choral season, beginning in Fall 2022. The Choristers rehearse twice weekly in preparation for regular services and occasional performances. Among other skills, the program emphasizes healthy vocal development, music education, teamwork, and leadership. St. Bartholomew’s Choristers, an auditioned ensemble, is open to children of all backgrounds, ages eighteen and under. To schedule an introductory session, email Alexander Pattavina.
St. Bartholomew’s Chorister program was founded in 1995 by reaching out to children and families throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The program consists of thorough musical education and choral training, sustained by rehearsals throughout the week, liturgical singing, concerts, trips, recording projects and an annual late summer choir camp, lakeside in rural Connecticut. The Choristers have performed with Betty Buckley, Jessye Norman and St. Bartholomew’s Choir in the annual Joyous Christmas Concert, and they have appeared on NBC’s “Today,” the Early Show, and Good Morning America.
They’ve also performed with the American Boy Choir, the Boys Choir of Harlem, the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, and London’s Southwark Cathedral choir. For years they hosted the annual St. Bartholomew’s Chorister Festival, attended by hundreds of children from the tri-state area and beyond. The Choristers have sung at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Burlington, Vermont, historic Old Christ Church in Philadelphia, Washington’s National Cathedral, and Carnegie Hall. They have performed on stage with the Amy Cox Dance Company and premiered Anthony Piccolo’s Pageant of the Holy Nativity. The Choristers are heard in two professional recordings, “My Song is Love Unknown” and “Sing in exultation,” and they have twice visited England, singing in residence at Canterbury and several other Cathedrals.
Emphasis is placed on learning to read music in order to perform a wide range of repertoire, from chant to contemporary. Within their leadership role in liturgy, Choristers develop an active awareness of music, art, language, and history. At regular social events (choir camp, BBQs, talent show, pizza lunches), they form new and lasting friendships with other children from a variety of backgrounds, from across New York City and beyond.
To find out if the Chorister program might help develop and support the musical interests of a young person you know, please contact Associate Organist and Choirmaster Alexander Pattavina via email.
