...of Holy Trinity is one of very few professional choirs in residence in a Lutheran Church in the United States. With a distinguished 40 year history, the choir has maintained excellence amidst the constant changes inherent in a church setting. Most often the choir numbers around 12 voices. The Bach Choir may be heard in two CD releases, Joining Hearts and Voices and Bach for All Seasons, both produced with Augsburg Fortress, and each nominated for a Grammy. (These are available by contacting the Bach Office, for more info click here.)
...constitute one of New York's finest early music instrumental ensembles. In 1994 Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity implemented the performance of Bach on historic instruments (modeled on those known to Bach in the Baroque period) thus creating a unique and accurate staging of Bach’s cantatas and other sacred works. Peter Kupfer was formally named concertmaster in 2000. The string ensemble has recently completed a recording project of Buxtehude sacred cantatas with Countertenor (release date tbd). Individually, the renowned ensemble members are in great demand and perform throughout the United States and beyond.
PRINCIPAL SOPRANO SOLOIST: London’s The Independent said of JENNIFER BATES “…the songs were sung with such passion, such conviction that I thought I could never forget those words.” Highlights of Ms. Bates’ recent seasons include debuts in both Avery Fisher Hall in Zemlinky’s Der Zwerg with the American Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Leon Botstein, and Carnegie Hall, singing Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the New England Symphonic Ensemble. Her European engagements have included Elgar’s The Kingdom with Maestro Leonard Slatkin and the Philharmonia (London) in the Three Choirs Festival, Haydn’s Creation with Robert Tear at the Dartington International Summer Festival, Fauré’s Requiem with Sir David Willcocks at Royal Albert Hall, and Verdi’s Requiem at Windsor Castle under Benedict Gunner. She has also appeared with the Masterworks Chorale in Boston, under Allen Lannom, and the Orchestra of London and the London Pro Arte Orchestra. Her repertoire spans the gamut, ranging from Bach, Monteverdi and Couperin to the more avant-garde works of Schönberg, Eisler, Berg, and Peter Maxwell Davies. Ms. Bates was a Chamber Music Fellowship recipient at the Aspen Festival, and a Scholar at the Stearns Institute for Singers at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Jennifer is currently pursuing a DMA at SUNY Stony Brook.
JASON ABRAMS is rapidly becoming known as one of the rising stars of the next generation of countertenors. Praised by the Boston Globe for his “uncommon beauty of timbre and acting skill,” the young American countertenor is rapidly garnering continued acclaim for his stunning and nuanced performances. In the 2007-08 season, he sings Nireno in Giulio Cesare with Florida Grand Opera and joins the Lyric Opera of Chicago for performances of the same opera. He also makes his Carnegie Hall debut singing Messiah with the Oratorio Society of New York and joins the roster of New York City Opera for Purcell’s King Arthur.
His recent performances include Arnalta in L’incoronazione di Poppea with Central City Opera, Arsamene in Xerxes as a guest artist with Pittsburgh Opera Center, and Nireno in Giulio Cesare with Connecticut Opera Theater. He also joined the Waverly Consort for The Christmas Story, and the Greenwich Music Festival for Handel’s Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne.
In previous seasons, he has sung Nireno in Giulio Cesare with Boston Baroque and Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Tanglewood Music Center. Also at Tanglewood he sang Bach’s Cantata 53: Schlage doch with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia (conducted by Robert Spano), and Britten’s Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi. His oratorio experience also includes performances of Bach’s St. John Passion with the New Hampshire Master Chorale, Bernstein’s Choruses for the Lark with the Newton Choral Society, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers with the Tiffany Consort, Handel’s Messiah with the Catalina Chamber Orchestra, concerts of arias and duets with the Boston Civic Symphony, and Orff’s Carmina Burana as a guest artist at Tufts University.
Jason Abrams received the John Moriarty Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions’ New England Region. He is 2005 First Place winner of the Connecticut Opera Guild Competition and in 2004 won First Place in National Association of Teachers of Singing competition in the Boston Region and received an Encouragement Grant from the Fritz & Lavinia Jensen Foundation. In previous seasons, he has been a Fellow at the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center and a Studio Artist at Central City Opera where he received the Starkey Young Artists Award.
Jason Abrams holds a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory where he sang Endymione in La Calisto, Nerone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea, and Orfeo in Orfeo ed Euridice. While there, he also joined the Boston University Opera Institute as a guest artist for performances of Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He holds a Master of Music from the University of Arizona and a Bachelor of Music from James Madison University.
Rising young Canadian baritone, DREW SANTINI, is a native of Stratford, Ontario. He currently studies at the Manhattan School of Music under Neil Rosenshein. Since 2005, he has sung as soloist, section leader and cantor at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in New York City. Last year, he appeared at the Niagara International Chamber Music Festival with Canadian Bass-Baritone Gary Relyea, performing scenes from Die Zauberflöte, Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. He also won the prestigious Grand Award at the National Music Festival in Canada. This award has not been won by a singer in over ten years. Dedicated to the art of recital singing and art song, Mr. Santini has given recitals in Canada and in the United States. His interest in the work of Walt Whitman led him to create a cycle based on his poetry. The cycle has evolved and Mr. Santini continues to showcase it in recitals where it has been received extraordinarily well. Mr. Santini has appeared with orchestras in Canada, in the United States and in Peru. Recent engagements include Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Regina Coeli, Haydn’s Seven Last Words, Handel’s Messiah and the Fauré Requiem. Mr. Santini is also an active conductor. He studied conducting under Noel Edison with The Elora Festival Singers and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Also with Mr. Edison, Mr. Santini conducted the Ontario Youth Choir on their tour of Southwestern Ontario. Last year he conducted John Stainer’s Crucifixion at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in New York City. 
PRINCIPAL BASS SOLOIST: JOE DAMON CHAPPEL, a native of Nashville, is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. At Eastman, he was a William Warfield Scholar and had many solo credits with the Eastman Chorale and the Eastman Opera Theater. His career has demonstrated proficiency in a wide range of musical genres, from early music to opera and musical theater. He has performed with groups such as Bachworks, NY Collegium, Early Music New York, Les Gouts-Reunis, Vox Vocal Ensemble and The Tiffany Consort (founding member). He was hailed by the New York Times as a “warm bass anchor…” and after his first Verdi Requiem, The State of Columbia, SC wrote “Chappel’s ‘Mors Stupebit’ kept the audience hanging on every breathy syllable, filling the hall with his strength even in the softest moments.” He was a member of the Carolina Chamber Chorale (C3) at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC and was bass soloist in world premieres by several American composers, including Dan Locklair and Anthony Davis. In October 2004, Mr. Chappel sang his first Verdi Requiem with the South Carolina Philharmonic, Nicholas Smith, conductor. Subsequently, he and Maestro Smith have worked on several projects, including a Verdi Requiem at the Bollington Festival (UK), the Palmetto Opera’s production of Marriage of Figaro (as Figaro), and a return to the South Carolina Philharmonic as soloist in Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. A champion of music new and/or rarely heard, Mr. Chappel is frequently heard as a soloist in world premieres of newly written or newly discovered works. In February 2007, he made his Lincoln Center debut as bass soloist in the world premiere of South Carolina composer Andrew Fowler’s Directions for Singing. In 2006, he gave the New World premiere of a recently unearthed Kuhnau mass for solo bass and strings, and in 2002 Mr. Chappel sang the role of the Pilot in the world premiere of Anthony Davis’ Restless Mourning, written in the wake of the events of 9/11/01. In February 2008, Mr. Chappel will give the world premiere performance of Joelle Wallach’s Firefighter’s Prayer at Powell Hall as part of the Saint Louis Symphony’s “On Stage at Powell” recital series. On the opera stage, Mr. Chappel has performed the roles of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Mustafa (L’Italiana in Algieri), Frere Laurent (Romeo et Juliette), Mr. Gobineau (The Medium), Giove (La Calisto), Angelotti (Tosca), Sparafucile and Monterone (Rigoletto). He has participated in productions by One World Symphony, Dicapo Opera, the American Singers’ Opera Project, New Hampshire Opera, Connecticut Grand Opera, the Bollington Festival (UK), Opera at Eau Claire, and Palmetto Opera. A specialist in the sacred cantatas and Passions of Bach, he has also performed Bach’s secular cantatas, including Phoebus und Pan, the Coffee and Peasant Cantatas at the lunchtime concert series of Trinity Church Wall Street. A believer in the power of educational outreach, Mr. Chappel has performed roles in A Band of Angels and The Orphan Singer, two children’s musicals created by the New York City based company, Making Books Sing, and most recently as Noye in the Eau Claire High School (SC) production of Noye’s Fludde. During the ’07-08 season, Mr. Chappel can be heard in St. Louis, New York, Lubbock, Myrtle Beach, and Rochester (NY) in productions that include La Traviata (Verdi), St. Matthew Passion (Bach), Christ lag in Todesbanden (Bach) and Requiem (Durufle). His teachers have included Tracy Prentice, Carol Webber, and Gary Kendall.
PRINCIPAL TENOR SOLOIST JOHN KAWA was praised for having “plenty of stamina as well as [being] a well-rounded tenor” and he “fully conveyed the sense of his character,” by W.T. Walker of the Classical Voice of North Carolina for his title role performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo at the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute. In addition to Idomeneo, John has sung Orpheus in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, Valére in Mechem’s Tartuffe, Frantz in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Il Giudice in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, and Eutropio in Donizetti’s Belisario. He also had the joy of working under Kirke Mechem directly in a staged workshop of his most recent opera, Pride and Prejudice. His solo concert repertoire includes Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, Saint-Saens’ Christmas Oratorio, Stravinski’s Les Noces, Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and multiple Bach cantatas and oratorios. This season marks his second year with the Bach Choir at Holy Trinity Lutheran and third year in New York as a soloist and choral artist singing with such groups as the New York Virtuoso Singers, St. Andrew Chorale, Russian Chamber Chorus of New York, New York City Ballet, American Symphony Orchestra, and various others. Previously, he has performed at the Magnolia Baroque Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, the Illuminations! Summer Festival in Manteo, NC, and with the Macon Symphony Orchestra, in central Georgia. Singing engagements have taken him as far as South Africa and to several European nations. When not consumed by his music, he enjoys cooking, crossword puzzles, jogging, time with friends and family, and being an active member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church here in Manhattan. Mr. Kawa holds a BM in vocal performance from Mercer University in Macon, GA and a MM in opera performance form the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC. 
