Conducting machine
Rosenbaum devotes his life to spreading magic of choral music

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor

The legendary Harold Rosenbaum, professor of music and director of the UB Chorus and Choir, is a mean, lean, conducting machine.

	ROSENBAUM

Long a vital force in the world of American choral music, he continues to demonstrate a daunting devotion to the sublime and healing choral works that he says need to be heard now more than ever.

A man of tremendous enthusiasm and energy (particularly for Bach), he directs nine choruses in the Northeast, including the two at UB, which he rehearses for five hours on Thursday afternoons before flying off into the waiting arms of dozens more singers of madrigal, oratorio, prelude and symphonic chorale, and their boards of directors, volunteer administrators and fleets of fundraisers.

During the past two decades, Rosenbaum-trained ensembles have presented more than 1,200 performances in collaboration with such entities as the American Symphony Orchestra, L'Orchestre Philharo-monique d'Europe, the Julliard Orchestra, the Madiera Bach Festival, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Tanglewood Orchestra, Brooklyn Academy of Music and "The David Letterman Show."

Dozens of critics from such publications as The New York Times, The New Yorker, New Music Connoisseur and London's Musical Times, as well as composers like Milton Babbitt, Lukas Foss, Ned Rorem, Bernard Holland, George Perle and Jacob Druckmann, have consistently and publicly praised the quality of his interpretations and performances.

Excerpts from recordings of Rosenbaum-directed choral performances can be found at http://www.nyvirtuoso.org/html/recordings.html. For more information about Rosenbaum's conducting activities, or for an updated concert schedule, visit http://www.haroldrosenbaum.com.

Given his complex and fast-moving schedule, however, catching up with the Westchester-based Rosenbaum is like snaring an aerialist on the fly. Between July 2001 and July 2002 alone, he will have conducted dozens of choral concerts throughout France, Italy and New York State—up to and including a breathtaking choir tour through the Canadian Rockies

On April 21, he will conduct the UB and Queens College choirs in the final concert of the New York Youth Symphony's Brahms Season at Colden Center for the Performing Arts on Long Island. The performance will feature Brahms' "Song of Destiny" and "A German Requiem," accompanied by an orchestra of 12-to-20-year-old musicians.

The program will be presented again on April 28 in Carnegie Hall.

Sandwiched between those programs, he will conduct the UB Chorus and Choir in a concert at 8 p.m. April 25 in Slee Concert Hall, North Campus. Following the Carnegie Hall performance, he will head east to conduct the Westchester Oratorio in what is guaranteed to be a sell-out a performance of Bach's "St. Matthew's Passion."

Rosenbaum's best-known contributions to his field include performances and recordings by his stunning professional chorus, the 16-member New York Virtuoso Singers (NYVS). The group has become the nation's leading professional choir specializing in contemporary choral work, much of which would find voice in few other venues.

In fact, on April 11 at New York City's Cooper Union College, Rosenbaum and the NYVS will present the U.S. premier of Austrian-American composer Ernst Krenek's "Lamentations of Jeremiah," a monumental work for unaccompanied voices that is one of the great and difficult choral masterpieces of the 20th century.

After catching its breath, the group will present Mahler's 2nd ("Resurrection") and 8th symphonies in August at the Bard Music Festival at Bard College.

Another of Rosenbaum's noted accomplishments is the Canticum Novum Singers, a group he founded 30 years ago. The first chorus in New York City devoted to Renaissance music, it is known for performances of such masterpieces as Monteverdi's "Vespro della beata Vergine."

Despite what for nearly anyone else would be a punishing log of air miles and road trips from Boston to Buffalo, Rosenbaum says, "I am blessed beyond telling. I love what I do."

He is able to accomplish so much, he says, because he is supported at all levels by hardworking volunteers who do much of the administrative work for his choral groups.

"I work with three boards of directors," he says. "We do endless fundraising, of course, just to continue performing and, with the difficult and less familiar contemporary music, the audience is relatively small.

"The Canticum Novem, however, commands audiences of 350 to 750, and my collaborations with the Bard Music Festival and the New York City orchestras have helped develop a broader audience for the contemporary works performed by the New York Virtuoso Singers, so we're in pretty good shape.

"As long as I am able, I will keep bringing beautiful choral music to the public," he says.

"It's worth all of the sacrifice and the hard work and long days because the people who wrote this sublime music must not be forgotten.

"The joy and emotional and spiritual uplift experienced by those who hear these profound works are transporting healing emotions, which more than ever are needed in this world."