Ring in the holiday season with this cheerful concert highlighting choral music with brass and organ. Guest conductor Todd Craven, the Associate Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and former Principal Trumpet with the Sarasota Orchestra, will lead a program featuring Christmas Cantata by Daniel Pinkham, works arranged by Daniel Moe and the Sarasota premiere of Eja! Eja! by James Grant. See the full program below.

The concert will feature organist Ann Stephenson-Moe and a brass and percussion ensemble from professional orchestras in Sarasota.

Listen!

Guest Conductor Todd Craven

Emerging orchestral conductor Todd Craven is known for his musical sensitivity and passion to promote classical music. He is the currently the Assistant Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Co-founder and Music Director of the Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra. Craven has also served as Music Director of the University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra and Music Director of the Michigan Pops Orchestra. He began his professional career as Principal Trumpet of the Sarasota Orchestra and was a frequent guest artist at the Sarasota Music Festival.

Todd guest conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2017, stepping in with a few hours notice in a program of Mendelssohn and Hummel, and in 2016 was an assistant conductor and competition winner at the Miami Music Festival. Craven has also served as a cover conductor and pre-concert lecturer for the Detroit Symphony.

A prize-winner in national and international competitions, Todd has performed as a trumpet player with the New York Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony and at the Spoleto Festival and Tanglewood Music Center. He made his conducting debut with members of the Sarasota Orchestra and chorus in Maurice Durufle’s Requiem in 2012 and his international conducting debut in St. Petersburg, Russia, conducting in a concert with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic. He has since conducted the Baltimore Symphony, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, as well as orchestras in Poland, Bulgaria, and Ukraine.

Todd’s conducting mentors include Marin Alsop, Larry Rachleff and JoAnn Falletta. He holds a Graduate Performers Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory, and Master of Music from Indiana University and the University of Michigan.

Meet the Soloist

Soprano Adelaide Boedecker has been described as “emotionally transparent and beguiling of tone” (The San Francisco Chronicle.) Ms. Boedecker is a former resident artist with Pittsburgh Opera and completed two summers as an apprentice artist with the Santa Fe Opera and with the Merola Opera Program.

Recently, Ms. Boedecker sang Clorinda in La Cenerentola with Opera Las Vegas and debuted the iconic role of Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with James Conlon and James Darrah at Music Academy of the West. In the spring of 2019, Ms. Boedecker made her role debut of Pamina in Die Zauberflöte and covered the title role in Donizetti’s Rita with Sarasota Opera. Ms. Boedecker also made her Opera Columbus debut in their Opera Swings Jazz concerts and returned to Santa Fe Opera to sing Meredian in Joe Illick and Andrea Walter’s UnShakeable. During the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Boedecker will join Steamboat Symphony Orchestra for Mozart’s Mass in C minor, the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and Capriccio Columbus as the soprano soloist in Carmina Burana, the Naples Philharmonic as the soprano soloist in Messiah, and the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe for their New Year’s Eve Gala to sing Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate. During the spring of 2020, Ms. Boedecker will return to Sarasota Opera as Adina in L’elisir d’amore.

Ms. Boedecker had great success at Merola, where she performed Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire and Despina in Così fan Tutte.  She also performed various roles with the Santa Fe Opera; including Ida in Die Fledermaus, Marie (cover) in La fille du régiment, Serpetta (cover) in La finta giardiniera, Lila/Laura (cover) in Cold Mountain, Tessa in Trinity, Sarah in Avastar, and Chrisann (cover) / Chorus Soloist in Santa Fe’s world premiere of (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.

Ms. Boedecker has also performed roles with Opera Birmingham (Micaëla in The Tragedy of Carmen), Performance Santa Fe (Yum-Yum in The Mikado) and Syracuse Opera (Clorinda in La Cenerentola).

While with Pittsburgh Opera, Ms. Boedecker performed Alice B. Toklas in 27, Marie (cover with performance) in La fille du regiment, Frasquita in Carmen, Anna in Nabucco, Beth in Little Women, Despina (cover) in Così fan tutte, and Mabrouka in Sumeida’s Song.

Ms. Boedecker is the winner of the Santa Fe Opera Anna Case MacKay Award, winner of the National Opera Association competition, scholarship division, and the second place winner of the American Prize competition for professional singers.

Ms. Boedecker made her professional debut at age 17, as Barbarina with the Sarasota Opera, and received her collegiate training at the University of Florida and the Eastman School of Music.

Program

Traditional, arr. Julian Wachner
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Gustav Holst
Christmas Day – Choral Fantasy on Old Carols

Daniel Pinkham
Christmas Cantata

James Grant
Eja! Eja! (Sarasota Premiere)

Arrangements by Julian Wachner
The Snow Lay on the Ground
Joy to the World
Un Flambeau (Bring a Torch)
Angels We Have Heard on High

Arrangements by Daniel Moe
O Tannenbaum
Still, Still, Still
O du fröliche

Traditional, arr. Julian Wachner
The Snow lay on the Ground

Franz Xaver Gruber, arr. Daniel Moe
Silent Night

Felix Mendelssohn, arr. Julian Wachner
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Back to top