Author name: Marty Sauser

Summer Concert

• Sunday, June 7, 2026, 3:00 p.m. at St. John’s Church in New Milford, CT
• Rehearsals every Wednesday starting March 25 2026, 7:00 p.m. at St. John’s
• Dress rehearsal on Saturday, June 6, 2026, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at St. John’s

Annual Meeting

• Wednesday, June 17, 2026, 6:00 p.m. at Kathie Clynes’ home
• 11 Kinney Farm Lane, New Milford, CT 06776-2141

First rehearsal: Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 7:00 pm at St. John’s Church in New Milford.

Dress rehearsal: Saturday, June 6, 2026, 1:00 to 4:00 pm at St. John’s Church in New Milford.

Concert date: Sunday, June 7, 2026. Concert is at 3:00 PM at St. John’s Church in New Milford.

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Music PDF with markings

We will provide printed music scores as usual, but if you want to download the music to your tablet, here is the PDF file (with Knox’s markings):

Brahms Requiem with Markings

Practice Aids

• From Henry, here’s an interlinear word-for-word translation. Like many of us, Henry sometimes wants to know “What’s that word?” Many translations adhere to the gist of the text but are adapted to fit English words to the music. This translation, while not singable, is a word-for-word translation of the German to English.
• Bass Martin Baltus recommends Johannes Brahms – Chord Perfect. “You just sing along with your voice and like CyberBass have the option to slow it down in the more difficult passages. It is free of charge but occasionally you will see a pop-up page for a voluntary donation which you can just click away if you don’t feel inclined to donate. I do donate because I think it is a very helpful site.”
• From alto Sara Coles: “Another rehearsal aid is Brahms German Requiem – Cyberbass, which I find very helpful for learning notes.”
• From alto Jill Sauser, here’s a German Pronunciation Guide

Recommended Recordings

From Knox: There are many fabulous recordings that can be an aid in hearing your part in the context of the others. I can certainly recommend the only professional recording of this chamber orchestration (by David Hill and the Yale Schola Cantorum), which you can stream on Spotify for free. (You’ll just have some ads.) It’s also available on YouTube.

Two recordings with full orchestra that I have enjoyed over the years are those by John Eliot Gardiner and Philippe Herreweghe.

Here is a player for the Spring concert recording. See the Concert Archives page for the concert program and photo gallery.

Here are Knox’s comments about this truly beautiful concert:

Dear ones,
Congratulations on a truly transcendent performance yesterday! I hope you are immensely proud of yourselves. Everything you sang was beautiful, nuanced, clear, and expressive. I am so grateful for the hard work you put in throughout this rehearsal cycle not just to learn some challenging repertoire but to really take your artistry to the next level with all of the details that go into great music making.

A special thank you to Sandy, who is such a wonderful collaborative pianist and had quite the heavy lift for this concert.

While yesterday’s concert should stand in your hearts and minds as a triumph on its own, I hope you’ll also consider it a launching point into continued great singing that unites beautiful sound and expressivity with attention to all the finer details. Nänie has long been a favorite of mine, and I wanted to perform it for its own sake, but I also specifically thought it would be a great prelude to the Requiem. For those of you who have never sung it, you are in for a real treat! I look forward to diving into it with you on Wednesday.

Again, I hope you are very proud of yourselves!

With gratitude,
Knox