Music at the Gate

05/18/2020

With great regret we remind everyone that the previously planned concert on May 30th is cancelled

12/11/2019

St. Mary Gate of Heaven Roman Catholic Church

https://www.facebook.com/smghparish/videos/2202029700098479/

Here is Part II of last week’s Music at the Gate Advent and Christmas Concert. We had some technical difficulties with the Live Video, but we were able to record it. Enjoy!

12/03/2019

Music at the Gate 12/01/2019

12/02/2019

St. Mary Gate of Heaven Roman Catholic Church

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2299558940334624&id=121332084550413

From the December 1st performance. Thank you Toney Mendoza!

LIVE from SMGH! Music at the Gate Concert!

11/25/2019

Featured performer on Sunday Dec 1 at 7pm

Ryan Closs is a Long Island based specialist of Historical Plucked Strings Performance. He is a requested performer for Operas, Cantatas, and Orchestras who has gained much attention for his work with dancers, singers, and chamber ensembles. Ryan’s duties as an outreach soloist for the Lute Society of America have earned him a title as the head of its NY chapter. His outreach performances have contributed to the growing knowledge and appreciation of the Lute and its times, a mission he continues and expands upon with his own period ensemble ‘4&20Strings’.
www.RyanCloss.com

11/25/2019

Featured performer on December 1 at 7pm. Kevin Lubin is a musician/composer with a passion for Early Music. Currently studying harpsichord at Adelphi University, Kevin is also proficient in viola da gamba and mandolin. He is a proud member of 4&20 Strings and Early Music Long Island, amongst other smaller chamber ensembles.

11/25/2019

Featured performer on December 1 at 7pm
Alexandra Calabro plays violin, viola, viola d'amore, mandolin, and erhu. She works as a freelance performer and teacher throughout Long Island and the metropolitan area. Alexandra specializes in baroque playing and is a steadfast advocate for the historically informed study of music before 1750. Alexandra has performed extensive baroque repertoire at numerous venues such as LIU Post, Queens College, Hofstra University, Molloy College, and Stony Brook University. She has also performed internationally. Alexandra is a frequent guest lecturer on historical performance at many of the universities she performs at, as well as at Long Island High School for the Arts. She is in demand due to her extensive knowledge and execution of historical practice. When she is not playing baroque music, Alexandra enjoys her work in the Long Island Vegetable Orchestra, in which she plays carrot.

11/12/2019

Alexandra Calabro (baroque violin) and Kevin Lubin (viola de gamba) will join the ensemble of Early Music instruments and Schola Sine Nomine in music for Advent and Christmas on Sunday, December 1 at 7pm at St. Mary Gate of Heaven Church. In Ozone Park Queens.
Admission is FREE but a free will offering of $10 is requested to support the parish Food pantry.

11/11/2019

Ryan Closs, early music artist of the lute, therobo and guitar will join Schola Sine Nomine on Dec 1 for music for Advent and Christmas.

10/29/2019

Come one, Come all. Start the Holiday season with glorious music of Advent and Christmas from the Renaissance to the 21st century performed by artists in residence Schola Sine Nomine and members of Early Music Long Island playing ancient instruments. This will be a benefit concert for the parish Food Pantry.

08/21/2019

MAG takes the opportunity to thank long time supporter Helen Borowik of Ozone Park. Helen is relocating to write new and exciting chapters of her life. Helen was there at nearly every MAG event greeting guests, handing out programs, ushering people to seats and always offering to help. THANK YOU Helen!

07/04/2019

Our 2018-19 season is over and plans for next season are already in the works. Music at the Gate events are offered free of charge but rely on the free will donations of its audiences and local businesses to continue.

Our sincere thanks to this season's donors.

Local businesses; Kearns Funeral Home (benefactors since our inaugural season!), Dolco Food Corporation, Romanelli-Stephens Funeral Home,Crossbay Chemists, Lisena Landscaping.

Parishoners; Patricia Troll, the Daughters of Wisdom, Deacon Bill Velasquez, Marie Torre, R. McGrath IMO John and Angela McGrath.

Community supporters;
Rovena Schirling, Carmela and Graham Bobby, Doris and Alan Treffeisen, Marian and Philip Skabeikis, Maria Dilworth IMO Joseph Stazzone, Jackie Jones, Helen Clement, Heide Hlawaty, Joan Tarbutton, Loretta Orentas, Caroline Morrow, Louise Foisy, Al Romito, Steven Taylor and Al Romito.

If you would like to help bring back Music at the Gate in the Fall, please send your donation of any amount made out to St. Mary Gate of Heaven with "Music at the Gate" in the memo line.

06/14/2019

Motomi Tanaka is a soprano from Yokohama, Japan. She has recently performed in the Pipe Organ Promenade Concert at Saitama Arts Theater in Japan, as a soloist with the Baroque Orchestra and Chorus at The Princeton Festival, as a featured Young Artist with ARTEK’s Madrigal Madness in NYC, and as Miss Wordsworth in Britten’s Albert Herring with Opera Theater Rutgers. She was recently a finalist at the Linn Maxwell Keller Distinguished Bach Musician Award Competition. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from Keio University and a Master of Music in vocal performance from Musashino Academia Musicae in Japan, and completed a Professional Studies Certificate at Manhattan School of Music. She is currently based in the New York City area and is pursuing doctoral studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

06/12/2019

What you will hear on Saturday, June 15th at 7pm.

Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11, (English: “Hymn of Jean Racine”) choral work by Gabriel Fauré, composed for four-part chorus and organ in 1865 and revised for chorus and chamber orchestra in 1906. The words sung by the chorus (“Verbe égal au Très-Haut”) are a translation by 17th-century French poet Jean Racine of a Latin hymn, “Consors paterni luminis” (“O Light of Light”), attributed to the 4th-century bishop of Milan St. Ambrose. (This hymn joins many others by early Christian figures to form an element of the liturgy [divine office] of the Roman Catholic Church as recorded in what was known until 1974 as the Roman Breviary.)

In the course of Fauré’s lengthy career, he became one of the foremost composers of French choral and sacred music. The Cantique de Jean Racine was the first of these works; it was written for a competition held just before the 20-year-old composer graduated from the École Niedermeyer, a school in Paris for training in classical and religious music. Although the judges—who included Fauré’s lifelong friend and one of his teachers Camille Saint-Saëns—had specified a more traditional Latin text, they eventually awarded Fauré first prize for his gentle, emotionally pitch-perfect entry.

06/11/2019

Who you will see and hear on Saturday, June 15 at 7pm.

Hornist Emily Wong is an active performer and arts administrator in New York City. Recent performances include appearances at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, and Carnegie Hall as well as non-traditional venues and avenues such as the American Museum of Natural History, Rikers Island, and on the Golden Globe-winning Amazon Original Series Mozart in the Jungle.

Passionate about arts advocacy and sustainability, Emily serves as president and executive director of The Chelsea Symphony and on the board for the Look + Listen Festival, an annual contemporary performing and visual arts event.

Emily has degrees in horn performance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she also achieved doctoral candidacy in brass pedagogy with additional focus in music history and arts administration. She lives in Brooklyn.

06/08/2019

Music at the Gate is happy to welcome back Queens resident Juan Herrera to the list of performers on Saturday, June 15th. Mr. Herrera is Percussion Artist at Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education having studied classical percussion performance at Queens College, of the City University of New York and State University of New York at Fredonia. He made his debut at Music at the Gate exactly a year ago when he added the necessary Latin flavor to a performance of John Rutter's Magnificat.

06/07/2019

Who you will see and hear on Saturday, June 15th at 7pm.

Katie von Braun received her Master of Music in Violin Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory, and her Bachelor of Music (with a minor in Anthropology) from the University of Michigan. In New York City, she is currently a Substitute at Phantom of the Opera, Concertmaster at Westchester Broadway Theater and regular performer at Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra. She teaches with Opus 118 Harlem School of Music and privately. Previous performing experience includes Symphony of Westchester, Opera in the Ozarks (as Concertmaster), Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theater, Bronx Opera, Dell’Arte Opera Festival and Pegasus: The Orchestra. When she's not playing music, Katie works for the startup company Emissary, and enjoys traveling and seeing Broadway shows.

06/06/2019

Katie Bishop , (bassoonist) uses her skills as a musician (both instrumentalist and composer) to organise, communicate, build community, speak up and to write music because of an urge to say something unique and add to social issue conversations. She was born in the United States, spent her formative years scattered about the west coast and the deep south, and now calls Brooklyn home. As an undergrad at Portland State University, she studied music composition, philosophy, and gender studies. Her graduate work was in composition and theory at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. She currently lives and creates art in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. You can listen to her music on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, and Google Play and find her online on various social media platforms @femmekatie.

06/05/2019

Who you will see and hear on Saturday, June 15 at 7pm.

Diana Golden holds a Doctorate of Music Arts in Cello performance from Rutgers University, a Masters in Cello performance from the Royal Academy o Music in London, Bachelors of Arts in English Literature from Cornell University and a Bachelor's in Cello performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall and Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center.

06/05/2019

Who you will see and hear on Saturday, June 15th at 7pm

Violinist Xinou Wei has performed through America, Europe, and China. He is a member of Member of Mozart Orchestra of New York under Gerald Schwartz and has served concertmaster for Camerata New York, Long Island Opera, Loft Opera, Garden State Philharmonic, Central Park Symphony, and Adelphi Orchestra. A respected teacher, he has taught in the Aspen Music Festival and School’s PALS program and currently teaches privately in New York. Having participated multiple times in the Aspen Aspen Festival, Xinou Wei attended the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY in 2017 and 2018 and will return in 2019.

05/31/2019

What you will hear on June 15th at 7pm.

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 - 1585) and his student William Byrd (1539 - 1623) were Roman Catholic musicians plying their craft for Protestant England monarchs particularly during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Their choral works were set to Latin texts (possibly for use in clandestine Catholic liturgies) as well English. Their innate skill and willingness to adapt to the demands of their patrons won them the protection of their Queen and freedom to travel to the continent and to publish their music.

Schola Sine Nomine will sing Tallis's "I call and cry to Thee, o Lord" and Byrd 's "Ave verum Corpus" and "Ne irascaris Domine" (Be not angry O Lord).

05/29/2019

What you will hear on June 15th at 7pm.

Mozart composed the motet "Ave verum corpus" ( Hail true body) for the feast of Corpus Christi in less than 48 hours in June 1791 just six months before his death aged 35. Some scholars feel it was a period of spiritual reawakening for the composer which would still see the unfinished Requiem Mass. These brief 46 measures of music capture the depth of Catholic Eucharistic theology.

05/16/2019

"Schmeckt und sehet unsers Gottes Freundlichkeit" by Telemann

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HZcYPs3nUhg&feature=youtu.be

Reed & Word (Jane Hoffman, soprano & Greg Weissman, oboe) with Jenna Girone-Vigilio, cello & Vilian Ivantchev, guitar recorded March 2019 at St. Mary Gate of...

05/10/2019

Mark your calendars and please us.

04/29/2019

LI Guitar Orchestra

04/29/2019

Long Island Guitar Orchestra and Long Island Classical Guitar Society Quartet under the direction of Christopher Gotzen-Berg .

04/29/2019

Music at the Gate concert series presented the Long Island Guitar Orchestra and Long Island Classical Guitar Society Quartet on Sunday April 28th conducted by Christopher Goetzen-Berg. Their program included music by Bach, Vivaldi, Miller, Rivera and Houghton.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, June 15th at 7pm for the next MAG event, a concert by Schola Sine Nomine and the Music at the Gate Orchestra in a program of music by Mozart, Bryd, Stanford, Faure and Tallis.

04/23/2019

Your are invited to the next event at Music at the Gate, next Sunday, April 28 at 4pm for a performance by the Long Island Guitar Orchestra. Admission is FREE but a free will offering is encouraged to ensure future concerts.

03/19/2019

Mark your calendars for our next event!!

03/11/2019

The duo of "Reed and Word" and guest artists presented a program of sacred cantatas as part of Music at the Gate yesterday afternoon. Pictured l to are Greg Weissman (oboe), Jane Hoffman (soprano), Vilian Ivantchev (guitar) and Jennifer Girone-Virgilio (cello).

03/04/2019

What you will hear at the next MAG concert. The program will include three cantatas from the baroque period (late 17th to early 18th Century approx.) These cantatas were composed for small church or private worship for single voice and small instrumental ensemble on religious/ biblical subjects.

You will hear a cantata by two famous composers of the Spanish baroque; Jose de Nebra and Josquet de La Guerre. De la Guerre's work takes the Old Testament heroine Judith as its subject.

Judith was a beautiful, clever, cool-witted widow in the ancient town of Bethuliah.
She was brave as a lion. When her town was besieged and death stared them all in the face, Judith hatched a plan to save herself and the townspeople. She coolly seduced, then murdered the enemy general Holofernes and hung his severed head on the city walls. Seeing it, the enemy soldiers were thrown into a panic and fled.
Bethuliah was saved and Judith proclaimed a heroine.

Come and hear this dramatic work and others on Sunday, March 10th at 4 pm. Admission is FREE. A free will offering to ensure future concerts is gratefully accepted.

01/24/2019

The Spring 2019 season of Music at the Gate starts on Sunday, March 10th at 4pm with a Concert by "Reed and Word". Founders soprano Jane Hoffman and oboist Greg Weissman are joined by cellist Jennifer Girone-Virgilio and guitarist Vilian Ivantchev. Mark your calendars. Watch these pages for more detailed information about the performers and the music they will perform.

12/21/2018

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our performers, audiences and donors. Special thanks to new pastor Rev. Carlos Velasquez for his continued support of the parish concert series. We look forward to the Spring series.

11/01/2018

Mark your calendars for the next presentation, the annual concert of music for Advent and Christmas. The program will include music by Palestrina, Bach, Schutz, Rutter, Tavener, Gray, Victoria, Laudrison and others. Watch for some notes on the music and performers in coming days.

10/15/2018

Guitar virtuoso, teacher and scholar Christopher Gotzen-Berg and three of his current or past students opened the new season of Music at the Gate yesterday with a program of eclectic music for guitar in solos and duets. Chris is founder and Executive Director of the Legato Foundation that supports and develops classical music on Long Island. Photo credit to Toney Mendoza.