Mid-Manhattan Performing Arts Foundation (MMPAF) brings Great Music between Fall and Spring every year. The Great Music at St. Bart's strives to cultivate, promote, sponsor and develop an understanding and love of great music as presented at St. Bartholomew's Church.
Check out our current 2017-2018 season brochure or peruse the concerts and events page, and as always, please consider becoming a member of the Great Friends of Music Guild.
The Mid-Manhattan Performing Arts Foundation in conjunction with Gotham Early Music Scene and Amherst Early Music’s CityRecorder workshop present the young recorder phenomenon, Martin Bernstein, in a program of 17th century music and poetry in the intimacy of St. Bartholomew’s Chapel. The program will include love songs of Giulio Caccini, shepherd’s laments of Sebastien de Brossard and instrumental works of Nicolas de Grigny and Nicola Matteis.
Jason Roberts, St. Bartholomew’s Associate Director of Music and Organist, will provide live, improvised accompaniment on St. Bart's famous Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ to three short comedies of Buster Keaton.
Convict 13 (1920) features Keaton as an innocent (and untalented) golfer who is mistaken for a convict. In The Boat (1921), Buster and his family sail into the Pacific Ocean in a homemade vessel that is barely seaworthy. And in Day Dreams (1922), Buster tries to win the hand of his girl by “making it big” in the city.
Experience these films as their first audiences would have: with live accompaniment, and hear St. Bart’s enormous pipe organ in a context you may not have heard before!
St. Bartholomew’s Choir, Boy and Girl Choristers, New York City’s largest pipe organ and a chamber orchestra join forces for this concert of Christmas favorites. Works include the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah, Vaughan Williams’ radiant Fantasia on Christmas Carols and carol settings of Ešenvalds, Chilcott, Willcocks and others. Experience the joy and warmth of the holidays with great choral works, sacred and secular, and the chance to sing the beloved carols of the season with organ and orchestra in the candlelit splendor of St. Bartholomew’s Church.
The 2016 Joyous Christmas Concert
The audience experienced the joy and warmth of the holidays with great choral works, sacred and secular, and the chance to sing the beloved carols of the season with organ and orchestra in the candlelit splendor of St. Bartholomew’s Church.
Jeff Morrissey, Baritone, and William Trafka, Pianist, return to St. Bartholomew’s intimate Chapel this season with their popular Christmas program inspired by the elegant paintings found in the South Chapel of St. Bartholomew’s.
In 1919 Ethel Parsons Paullin and her husband Telford created the beautiful Adoration of the Magi and the 13 medallions surrounding it depicting subjects connected with the Nativity of Christ.
Did you know? St. Bartholomew's Church, founded in 1835, is home to the largest pipe organ in New York City, and one of the largest in the country. William Trafka has been the Director of Music and Organist at St. Bart's since 1995. Douglass Hunt served as Organ Curator from 1980-2014.
Now in its seventeenth season, Midtown Concerts sponsors lunchtime performances of music of the 18th century and earlier for anyone seeking a respite from the midtown hustle and bustle. Ensembles are chosen by a jury of early-music specialists from the metropolitan area. Each free concert is 30 to 40 minutes in length; no tickets or reservations are necessary. Admission is free.
Click here for the full schedule of concerts.
