FREE concerts
The performances will last ~2 hours 15 minutes, including one intermission
NOTE new concert venue!
Click below to reserve your tickets!
Saturday & Sunday concerts are presently sold-out. We expect more tickets to be released ~ June 3. Check back for updates.
Prepare for your visit
- PLAN AHEAD if you’ll be parking. There are many events in the immediate vicinity on concert weekend. The church has an underground garage whose 140 spaces will surely fill.
- If you have a ticket, entry to the hall is fastest if you bring a digital or paper copy that we can scan. Failing that, we can also admit you based on the name on the reservation.
- Please enter the hall no later than 10 minutes before curtain, as at that time we release unused reservations to walk-up patrons. Doors open at 45 minutes before curtain. If you have a ticket but arrive later than 10 minutes prior, we can’t guarantee you a seat.
- If you don’t have a ticket, you can come to the venue as a walk-up patron as there are always no-shows. Here’s how that works:
- starting at 45 minutes before curtain, we hand out numbered tickets to walk up patrons so you have priority by your arrival.
- at 10 minutes before curtain we assess how many empty seats we still have, then admit walk-up patrons in order until we reach capacity.
Digital Concert Program booklet in full
brief Program Notes
The Story Behind the Terezin Requiem
Within the walls of the Terezín concentration camp during World War II, something extraordinary happened. Despite facing starvation, disease, and the constant threat of deportation to Auschwitz, the Jewish prisoners created a cultural scene that, for a time, surpassed that of any major European city. They mounted operas, formed choirs, composed new works, and performed masterpieces—most famously, the Verdi Requiem, learned by rote, at first from a single vocal score and accompanied by a legless upright piano. These weren’t acts of mere distraction or defiance; they were affirmations of essential humanity. The prisoners lived in order to create, to sing, to make meaning in the face of unimaginable darkness.
The Terezin Requiem emerges directly from this history. Composer Michael Schachter brings both artistic mastery and a deeply personal connection to this project. His wife’s great-grandfather disappeared during the Holocaust and was only recently traced to Terezín, where he sang in the camp’s choirs. Those choirs were conducted by Rafael Schächter, a pianist and music director who was a possible cousin of Michael’s—a connection suggested by striking physical resemblance and family origins in the same Czech region. Three generations later, Michael and his wife met while singing together in their undergraduate choir, an echo across time of those voices raised in Terezín.
This new choral-orchestral features texts that reflect the multilingual reality of Terezín’s population: Hebrew, Aramaic (Kaddish), German (Heinrich Heine), Yiddish, Latin (requiem texts), and Czech (poems by children imprisoned in the camp). The opening and closing movements draw from Psalm 144 and the El Malei Rachamim prayer. Michael’s musical language is influenced by the choral-orchestral works of Fauré and Brahms, as well as Hebrew liturgical chant, creating a soundworld that honors both the classical tradition and the specific Jewish experience of Terezín. The result is a work that speaks not only to Holocaust remembrance but to the universal power of art to sustain human dignity in the face of oppression.
Michael Schachter is a composer whose work bridges the concert hall, the theater, and the screen. Recent projects include a new concerto for pianist Aaron Diehl and the Knights honoring the centennial of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (premiered at Carnegie Hall in October 2024), as well as commissions with the Knoxville Symphony, New World Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Harvard University Choirs and Orchestra, and Grammy-winning choir Conspirare. His concerto for violinist Tessa Lark, Cycle of Life, premiered with the Knoxville Symphony in 2022 to rave reviews. In 2022, the Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered “Concerto No. 2: Anthem,” created in collaboration with Davóne Tines, Caroline Shaw, and Tyshawn Sorey. His music-theater piece The Black Clown (adapted from the Langston Hughes poem by Davóne Tines & Michael Schachter, directed by Zack Winokur) premiered with sold-out runs at the American Repertory Theater and Lincoln Center, earning a New York Times Critic’s Pick.
Michael’s connection to Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra began in 2012 when he won BCCO’s Emerging Composer Competition with his vocal work Oseh Shalom, which the chorus performed in 2013. Music Director Ming Luke has followed Michael’s career closely in the years since, making BCCO the ideal artistic home for this deeply personal commission.
BCCO premieres this work with these concerts featuring soprano Ronit Widmann-Levy and baritone Simon Barrad, both accomplished vocal artists steeped in the Jewish musical tradition.
Joseph Haydn’s Theresienmesse (Theresa Mass)
Haydn composed the Theresienmesse late in his career, when his sacred music had grown boldly symphonic. Associated with Empress Maria Theresa, the work demonstrates Haydn’s gift for blending ceremonial grandeur with deep expressive warmth. It stands among his finest “Esterházy masses”—works in which he brought the richness and scope of the symphony into the church. The mass glows with warm orchestral color and lyrical solo writing, all anchored by strong choral sections. Rather than showcasing soloists as separate operatic voices, Haydn weaves them seamlessly into the ensemble, making this one of the most polished and expansive of his late sacred works. BCCO is delighted to showcase the finalists of our most recent Vocal Soloist Competition – a national search – as the soloists quartet in this work. They are soprano Morgan Balfour, alto Brenda Iglesias, tenor Edward Graves, and bass Matthew Dexter.
Ming Luke, music director
Natalia Ter Agapova, assistant conductor
– Donate Today –
A gift to BCCO has direct, local impact on the future of classical music in the Bay Area. Donations support our free concerts, emerging composer commissions, and the hiring of local orchestra musicians and vocal soloists. Your gifts underwrite our groundbreaking assistant conductor program whose graduates have gone on to foundational music director roles across the area. This concert also features the winners of our most recent vocal soloists competition, three of whom hail from the Bay Area. Click here to make an online gift, or visit our Support Us page form more options