The Greenwich Choral Society will close its centennial season on Saturday, May 16 with “GCS Greatest Hits,” a concert of choral and operatic favorites at Christ Church Greenwich, followed by a reception marking the organization’s 100th year.
The performance, scheduled for 4pm, brings together chorus, orchestra, and guest soloists for a program spanning Handel, Mozart, Offenbach, Bizet, Gershwin, Verdi, American songs, and a world premiere by Granville Burgess.
Founded on January 7, 1926, the Greenwich Choral Society has spent the past century presenting choral music in Greenwich and the wider Fairfield and Westchester region. The group began with a goal that still reads plainly and sturdily: to encourage choral singing and a love of great music. Its centennial finale places that founding idea in full view, with a program built around works that have endured across generations and still draw singers and listeners into the same room.
The concert will feature Katherine Whyte, soprano; Holly Sorenson, mezzo-soprano; Chad Kranak, tenor; and Edward Pleasant, bass-baritone. Paul Mueller, former longtime conductor of GCS, will return as guest conductor.
Selections from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus will open the program, followed by excerpts from Mozart’s Requiem, KV 626 and Exultate Jubilate. Opera selections will include Offenbach’s “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour” from Les contes d’Hoffmann, Bizet’s “Au fond du temple saint” from Les pêcheurs de perles, and the “Habanera” from Carmen.
Verdi will have a prominent place in the afternoon, with the “Anvil Chorus” from Il Trovatore, the quartet from Rigoletto, “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco, and the “Brindisi” from La Traviata. The program will also include a Gershwin selection from Porgy and Bess.
The concert will look ahead as well as back. In recognition of America’s 250th anniversary, GCS will present the world premiere of Burgess’s Gettysburg Address, along with selections of American songs. For an ensemble observing its own century mark, the pairing gives the afternoon a broader historical frame: a local institution reflecting on endurance, civic memory, and the continuing role of music in public life.
GCS has built that role steadily. Over its history, the chorus has performed at Carnegie Hall, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Thomas Church, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. It has appeared with the Greenwich Symphony, New Haven Symphony, New Haven Chorale, Stamford Symphony, and other regional ensembles. Its international performances have included tours in England, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Greece, Austria, and Hungary.
The society has also commissioned new works and participated in community outreach through performances at the Greenwich YWCA, area senior centers, and the Curiosity Concert Series for children at Greenwich Library. Those appearances form a quieter part of the organization’s public record, one that speaks to the way choral music moves through a town: from concert halls to libraries, churches, schools, and gathering places.
That community dimension will be present at the centennial finale. Students and children may attend free by contacting the GCS office at 203-622-5136, extending the invitation to younger listeners and families.
For Greenwich, the concert offers a chance to hear familiar masterworks in one of the town’s historic spaces while recognizing a musical organization shaped by generations of singers, conductors, volunteers, patrons, and audience members. A chorus lives through repetition and renewal: rehearsal after rehearsal, season after season, breath after breath.
On May 16, the Greenwich Choral Society will mark 100 years with the sound that has carried it from the beginning — many voices, gathered together, singing forward.
