brahms, kodály, Duruflé
Thursday, February 5, 2026 @ 7:30PM
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011
Voices of Ascension Chorus and Orchestra
Dennis Keene, Artistic Director and Conductor
Miles Mykkanen, Tenor
Gregory Feldmann, Baritone
Three master composers of the 19th and 20th century with three of their greatest works, each one hardly ever performed. Brahms’ Nänie is a lyrical, voluptuous setting of the setting of the Schiller ode about life and mortality. It contains some of the most beautiful music Brahms ever composed.
Zoltán Kodály considered his Psalmus Hungaricus his greatest composition. This extraordinary, passionate work gives voice to the suffering and perseverance of the Hungarian people in the years following World War I, and their longing for dignity and self-determination in the face of foreign rule. The Brahms and Kodály pieces will be heard in brand new transcriptions made for The Manton Memorial Organ by Dennis Keene, with tenor soloist Miles Mykkanen.
Known for his Requiem, the Messe ‘cum jubilo’ is Maurice Duruflé’s other major choral work. Dedicated to his wife, it is filled with love and joy, and is scored for orchestra and a chorus of 30 baritones in unison! We believe this is only the third time this exceptional piece has ever been performed in New York with orchestra.
The career of exuberant young Finnish-American tenor Miles Mykkanen was launched with a national win of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in 2019. He has since impressed with a series of important debuts on the world’s major stages, including theMetropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Canadian Opera Company, and Royal OperaHouse Covent Garden, where The i declared his performance“the most beautiful singing of the evening” and Opera Magazine dubbed it“so striking and brilliant” that “he managed to turn the Steersman into a principal character.”In a pivotal 25/26 season, Mykkanen stars as Sam Clay in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night gala and house premiere run, conducted by Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Mykkanen returns to the house later this season as The Groom in the first Met production of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence. Elsewhere, he makes two dual house and role debuts: as Leukippos in Strauss rarity Daphne at Seattle Opera, and as Tamino in Barrie Kosky’s silent film-inspired production of The Magic Flute at LA Opera. He also brings his flexible tenor to Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with Cleveland Orchestra, led by Franz Welser-Möst, and to Handel’s Messiah with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, conducted by Dame Jane Glover, University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
He marks his first appearance at the Maastricht Festival in the Netherlands as soloist in a unique Carmina Burana with acclaimed piano duo Lucas and Arthur Jussen, and will be the featured artist in Juilliard’s annual Alice Tully Vocal Recital at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall.
Mykkanen has quickly become the go-to tenor for roles requiring a deft balance of power, lyricism, and dramatic acuity, including a new Barrie Kosky production of Die Fledermaus and Philip Venables’ world premiere We Are The Lucky Ones, both at Dutch National Opera, a new Ted Huffman production of L’incoronazione diPoppea at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the North American premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence at San Francisco Opera. Additional appearances include Dietote Stadt (Bayerische Staatsoper), Falstaff (Staatsoper Hamburg), Candide (Opéra de Lausanne, Ravinia, Tanglewood), Silent Night (Minnesota Opera), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Opera Philadelphia), and Boris Godunov, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Wozzeck, all at the Met. His Albert Herring at Chicago Opera Theater was praised by Opera News for“an appealing honeyed sweetness which he employed with intelligence and humor.”Mykkanen has performed under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst (Ariadne auf Naxos and Jenůfa with Cleveland Orchestra), Krzysztof Urbański (Carmina Burana with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), Manfred Honeck (Bruckner’s Te Deum with Pittsburgh Symphony), Tito Muñoz (Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with Phoenix Symphony), Nathalie Stutzmann (Missa Solemnis with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), and Leonard Slatkin (West Side Story with New York Philharmonic and Mohammed Fairouz’s Another Time with Detroit Symphony). His in-demand interpretations of Handel’s Messiah have taken him to the symphonies of Atlanta, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and New Jersey, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center.
American baritone Gregory Feldmann is a rising star in opera, musical theatre, and recital stages alike. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Feldmann is a graduate of the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies program at the Juilliard School.
In the 2025-26 season, operatic highlights include a role debut as Marcello La bohème for Opera Saratoga and a return to Opernhaus Zürich as Dancaïre in Bizet’s Carmen, the same role he covers at the Metropolitan Opera. The summer sees Feldmann return to the Glimmerglass Festival to perform Guglielmo in Così Fan Tutte.
Last season, Feldmann made his role debut in the title role of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet with the Buxton International Festival in the UK and also reprised the role of Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in Ireland. Additionally, he made a role debut as Mercutio in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, as well as a reprise of Elviro in Handel’s Serse, with Opernhaus Zürich.
Andrew Henderson is Director of Music & Organist at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, where he oversees an extensive liturgical and choral program, including the 40-voice Saint Andrew Chorale, the 180-voice New York City Children’s Chorus, in addition to the Saint Andrew Music Society’s Music on Madison concert series. He also serves as the chair of the organ department at the Manhattan School of Music, as the organ instructor at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, and as Associate Organist at New York City’s Temple Emanu-El. Dr. Henderson, a native of Thorold, Ontario, holds degrees in music from Cambridge and Yale Universities, and in 2007 he was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at The Juilliard School. He was a finalist in the international competition Grand Prix de Chartres in France in 2002, and won first prize in the Royal Canadian College of Organists’ biennial National Organ Playing Competition the following year. Recent performances include organ and continuo playing with the New York Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Musica Sacra, Voices of Ascension, The Oratorio Society of New York and The Collegiate Chorale, and solo recitals in Poland, Canada, and throughout the USA. His performances have been featured on the nationally-syndicated public radio programs Pipedreams and With Heart and Voice. He has been featured as a recitalist and workshop leader at national and regional gatherings of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the Fellowship of United Methodists in Worship and Music Arts, the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and the American Guild of Organists. His first solo CD, Andrew Henderson at St. John’s, Elora, was recorded and released in 2010. A Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, his teachers have included John Tuttle, Barrie Cabena, David Sanger, Thomas Murray and John Weaver.
Our 2025-26 Season
