Immediately following Pacific Chorale’s season finale was our 2023 Gala at the Avenue of the Arts Hotel in Costa Mesa. It was truly a joy to be able to celebrate the close of our season, the lifetime accomplishments of Richard Stein, and our biggest fundraising night of the year.
Because of the incredible generosity of our gala sponsors and guests, Pacific Chorale raised nearly $250,000 at the 2023 Gala which will make an incredible impact in advancing our award-winning choral performances and life-changing education programs. We thank everyone involved for helping to make this evening such a spectacular night.
All Photos © Matt Gush/Robert Huskey
• Phillip N. and Mary A. Lyons
• Salt-Away Products
• Tom and Bonnie Pridonoff
• Charles and Ling Zhang
• Brian D. Bates, CPA
• Deborah Then
• Cal State Fullerton
• Drs. Andrei Novac and Bonita Jaros
• Newport Beach Film Festival
Susan Lindley, Gala Chair
Carla Neeld
Pat Newton
Carl Porter
Beth Varney
Julie Virjee
Amanda Whiting
ArtsOC artsoc.org
David Navarro & CJ Matsumoto & Sons cjmatsumoto.com
Sophia Chang
Jennifer Logan & Studio Fuse studiofuse.biz
Zack Krone & California Coast Auctions cacoastauctions.com
Segerstrom Center for the Arts scfta.org
Terri Collins & Avenue of the Arts Hotel avenueoftheartshotel.com
Silver Trumpet Restaurant & Bar silvertrumpetrestaurant.com
South Coast Plaza southcoastplaza.com
The Singers of Pacific Chorale
RA Yoga rayoga.com
Lumiere Skyn lumiereskyn.com
Summit House Restaurant Fullerton summithouse.com
ARTime BARRO artimebarro.com
STARK Fitness starklife.us
trim fitness trimfitnessstudio.com
Home Chef homechef.com
Rancho Capistrano Winery ranchocapwinery.com
Tea House on Los Rios theteahouseonlosrios.com
Aquarium of the Pacific aquariumofpacific.org
Long Beach Symphony longbeachsymphony.org
Newport Beach Film Festival newportbeachfilmfest.com
City Club LA invitedclubs.com/clubs/city-club-los-angeles
Museum of Latin American Art molaa.org
Nico’s Restaurant nicosrestaurant.com
LA Master Chorale lamasterchorale.org
The Broad thebroad.org
On May 20, 2023, Pacific Chorale graced the stage at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall for our final concert of the 2023-24 Season. Robert Istad conducted the Chorale, along with Pacific Symphony and guest soloists Aundi Marie Moore and Michael Sumuel, in the West Coast Premiere of Florence Price’s choral-orchestral version of Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight. In the second half, the Chorale’s I-Chin Betty Feinblatt and Nicholas Preston joined as soloists for Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis.
We are thrilled to be taking this program on tour in July.
Enjoy a few highlights from the concert!
All photos © Jamie Pham Photography.
The summer of 1798 was a bleak one at the court of Prince Nicholas Esterházy. The year before, the invading French army under Napoleon Bonaparte had pushed north from Italy into Austria and threatened Vienna itself, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Bonaparte’s implacable campaign had eventually forced the Emperor into a treaty that stripped away his territories in present-day Belgium, northern Italy, and southern Germany. Great Britain was left as the last European military power standing against France’s imperial ambitions.
Joseph Haydn
Meanwhile Esterházy’s celebrated court composer, Joseph Haydn, was suffering from exhaustion, his health having broken down after the premiere of his great oratorio The Creation that spring. Under doctor’s orders, he was confined to his rooms at Esterházy Palace to recuperate. It was amid such circumstances of personal and national distress that he turned his attention to his next official duty: composing a Mass to be sung for the name day of Princess Esterházy in September.
Esterházy Palace
Due to wartime economies, the Prince had dismissed the horn and woodwind players from his house orchestra, leaving the composer a limited instrumental palette of strings, trumpets, timpani, and organ to work with. It was not for nothing, however, that Haydn had a reputation as the preeminent composer in Europe. He turned these constraints into assets, using the military associations of the trumpets and drums to give the Mass urgency and drama. He gave the new work the title Missa in angustiis—a Mass for Troubled Times.
Although Haydn could not have known it while he was writing the Mass, a ray of hope was already on the horizon. During the first three days of August, the British Royal Navy, led by Admiral Horatio Nelson, delivered Napoleon a stunning defeat at the Battle of the Nile. Nelson’s success would demoralize France, giving Austria a much-needed respite, and inspired the war-weary continent to renewed resistance.
Battle of the Nile, Augt. 1st 1798: The British fleet bears down on the anchored French.
News of the battle took several weeks to make its way across Europe. Word of Nelson’s victory became breaking news in Austria just about the time Haydn’s new Mass was first performed—possibly even on the same day, as tradition holds. Thus, the Missa in angustiis (Mass for Troubled Times) quickly acquired a second name, the “Nelson Mass,” and it has been known by both titles ever since. Its namesake may have even had a chance to hear the work himself when Lord Nelson paid a visit to the Esterházy palace two years later, forever cementing the association between man and music.
Pacific Chorale concludes its season with Haydn’s masterpiece Missa in Angustiis (Mass for Troubled Times), paired with the West Coast premiere of the choral-orchestral version of groundbreaking composer Florence Price’s newly discovered Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight. These works, although grounded in the new and old worlds respectively and composed more than a century apart, both address the futility of war.
We are thrilled to share a musical program of such significance. Although composed in vastly different times in reaction to vastly different circumstances on separate continents, both works convey powerful and profound messages of humanity that are as relevant today as they were when they were composed.
Immediately following Pacific Chorale’s season finale was our 2023 Gala at the Avenue of the Arts Hotel in Costa Mesa. It was truly a joy to be able to celebrate the close of our season, the lifetime accomplishments of Richard Stein, and our biggest fundraising night of the year. Because of the incredible generosity of our
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On May 20, 2023, Pacific Chorale graced the stage at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall for our final concert of the 2023-24 Season. Robert Istad conducted the Chorale, along with Pacific Symphony and guest soloists Aundi Marie Moore and Michael Sumuel, in the West Coast Premiere of Florence Price’s choral-orchestral version of Abraham Lincoln
Continue Reading
Music in Troubled Times The summer of 1798 was a bleak one at the court of Prince Nicholas Esterházy. The year before, the invading French army under Napoleon Bonaparte had pushed north from Italy into Austria and threatened Vienna itself, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Bonaparte’s implacable campaign had eventually forced the Emperor
Continue Reading