Montclair State University Chorale featured in NJ Symphony Recording

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra released a live recording of Verdi’s Requiem, conducted by Music Director Jacques Lacombe. Featured artists include Montclair State University Chorale, Heather J. Buchanan, director, and soloists Marianne Fiset, soprano, Janara Kellerman, mezzo-soprano, Russell Thomas, tenor and Peter Volpe, bass.

In April, The Star-Ledger hailed the Orchestra’s Requiem performance: “From the first notes, the rendition effectively conveyed the work’s gravitas, with deep, rich weighty sound in the opening halting chords that created a feeling of being stunned by divine power and mortality … [Soprano Marianne Fiset], the chorus and the orchestra mustered a shattering final climactic outpouring of sound evoking the cosmic before returning to a simple, unison chant, taking the work touchingly back to a humble, human realm.”

Superconductor also praised the NJSO’s performance of the masterwork: “What is needed [to perform Verdi’s Requiem] is an absolute, unshakable faith in the power of voice and orchestra to deliver dramatic thrills equivalent of any staged opera … Leading the struggle was Mr. Lacombe, [who] brought details of this score into sharp focus, emphasizing the texture of the work and always choosing to luxuriate in the more lyric passage of the score.”

Verdi’s Requiem—recorded April 3, 2014, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark—is the second recording the NJSO has released under the baton of Lacombe. The music director’s lauded NJSO 2008 debut performance of Carmina Burana is also available on a CD released in 2010. That recording garnered a 10/10 rating from Classics Today, which praised a performance “so superb—so lively, accurate, cleanly recorded, and handsomely played—that its action-movie, apocalyptic aspects are matched by its introspective moments.”

For more information, see the New Jersey Symphony website at njsymphony.org/verdiCD.