NEWARK / MONTCLAIR, NJ — The Oratorio Society of New Jersey will be performing its first live, in-person concerts since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The concerts will take place on Saturday, Nov. 20, at 8 p.m. at Union Congregational Church, 176 Cooper Ave. in Montclair, and Sunday, Nov. 21, at 3 p.m. at Historic Grace Church, 950 Broad St. in Newark. The concerts will be conducted by OSNJ music director Sandor Szabo.
Tickets to attend the concerts in-person can be purchased in advance at www.oratoriosocietynj.org or at the door; the Montclair concert will also be available via livestream to ticketholders at the same web address. For both the Montclair and Newark concerts, face masks are required for all attendees, regardless of vaccination status; seating will be socially distanced.
The concert features a broad spectrum of choral music, from the Renaissance work of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, through the Baroque masters Antonio Vivaldi and Henry Purcell, to 20th-century works by Benjamin Britten and the Canadian-American black composer Robert Nathaniel Dett. The variety of the program will demonstrate how the beauty of choral music has progressed, with each era influencing the ones to follow. More importantly, the concert will convey the power of the human voice to communicate commitment, hope and joy through music.