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Light a Candle for Someone you love This Christmas

 

Christmas is a time of warmth, reflection, and connection

It is when we gather to celebrate the season and the people we hold dear. At the darkest time of the year, the glow of a single candle becomes a powerful symbol of hope and remembrance.

Whether in honor of a loved one or as a symbol of a wish or aspiration for the year to come, your dedicated candle will shine brightly in the Church of the Ascension.

For a gift of $250 or more, your candle will represent the person or the message you choose, becoming a part of our concert and filling the room with light and meaning.

Your tribute will be included in a special listing within the concert program, allowing your dedication to be shared with all in attendance. You’ll also have the opportunity to personally light your candle before the concert begins, creating a quiet moment of reflection and connection. 

For those dedicating candles, we warmly welcome you to join us at a pre-concert champagne reception hosted by our Executive Director, Jonathan Bradley, and other special guests—a time to celebrate and share in the joy of the season together.

Help sustain Voices of Ascension

Ensure that our cherished Candlelight Christmas Concerts continue to fill the church with the memories, wishes, and love that make this time of year so meaningful—for years to come.



 

Choral Grand Opening:
Mozart & Bach

Thursday, October 23, 2025 @ 7:30PM
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011

 

Voices of Ascension opens its 36th season with a concert of soaring virtuosity and spiritual grandeur. Soprano Liv Redpath joins the Voices of Ascension Chorus and Orchestra under the direction of Artistic Director Dennis Keene for a transcendent pairing of choral masterworks: Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor and J. S. Bach’s Magnificat in D Major.

Filled with drama, beauty, and exquisite music, this concert launches the season with a powerful celebration of choral artistry, all within the luminous acoustic of the Church of the Ascension.

This performance is a gift from The Secular Society in memory of Liz Norman, who was Voices’ Executive Director for 14 years, and whose leadership helped shape the organization’s artistic legacy.

With support from

 
 

Our 2025-26 Season

CANDLELIGHT CHRISTMAS CONCERTS

Tuesday, December 16, 2025 @ 7:30 pm
Thursday, December 18, 2025 @ 7:30 pm
Saturday, December 20, 2025 @ 4:30 pm
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011

Third concert added!

Now in its 36th year, Voices of Ascension’s Candlelight Christmas Concerts remain a treasured holiday tradition for New York audiences. Set in the candlelit sanctuary of the Church of the Ascension, these concerts feature a vibrant mix of ancient carols, seasonal masterworks, and contemporary reflections on winter and light—offering warmth, beauty, and community at year’s end.

These shows will sell out, get your tickets today!


 
 

Our 2025-26 Season

 

brahms, kodály, Duruflé

Thursday, February 5, 2025 @ 7:30PM
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011

Three master composers of the 19th and 20th century with three of their greatest works, each one hardly ever performed. Brahms’ Nänie is only 12 minutes long but contains some of the most beautiful music he ever composed.

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.

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 gorgeous piece has ever been performed in New York with orchestra.

 
 

Our 2025-26 Season

Monteverdi Vespers of 1610

Thursday, March 5, 2026 @ 7:30PM
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011

The towering masterpiece of the Early Baroque, with many soloists, double chorus, Early Music strings, recorders, cornetti, sackbuts, theorbos, harpsichord and organ. Truly one of the pillars of Western Music. We are privileged to collaborate with Dark Horse Consort for this memorable occasion – the finest interpreters of this repertoire to be found in the Western Hemisphere.

The early music ensemble Dark Horse Consort is dedicated to unearthing the majestic late renaissance and early baroque repertoire for brass instruments Inspired by the bronze horse statues in Venice’s famed St. Mark’s Basilica the ensemble attempts to recreate the glorious sounds of composers such a Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz.

This is certain to be a memorable occasion!

 
 

Our 2025-26 Season

MASTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE: THE NETHERLANDS SCHOOL

Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 7:30PM
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011

Motets and Masses by Josquin des Prez, Jan P. Sweelinck, Orlande de Lassus, and more

Arguably the richest repertoire of a cappella choral music from the “Golden Age of Choral Music.” This program features one great work after another from more than two centuries of history, starting with the absolute summit of Early Renaissance masters, Josquin des Prez, and going all the way to the High Renaissance works of Orlande de Lassus. Also featured are seldom heard, but exceptionally poetic and colorful motets of Dutch composer, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.

Our 2025-26 Season

Canticle of the Sun: BETH WILLER

Thursday, May 21, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011

Tommy Mesa, Cello
Jon Gillock, Organ

Voices of Ascension proudly welcomes Beth Willer as our Featured Guest Conductor for the season’s culminating performance. Founder and Artistic Director of the celebrated Boston-based Lorelei Ensemble and Director of Choral Activities at the Peabody Conservatory, Willer is a fearless champion of music that bridges tradition and innovation.

In this thrilling program of firsts, Voices presents the New York City premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Canticle of the Sun—a radiant work for chorus and solo cello originally composed for Mstislav Rostropovich, with text by St. Francis of Assisi—the East Coast premiere of Ellen Reid’s immersive work Oscillations: 100 Years and Forever, featuring newly reimagined NYC visuals, and a world premiere by New Zealand/New York composer Celeste Oram. Works by Olivier Messiaen (Apparition de l'église éternelle (Apparition of the Eternal Church) for organ, Louange a l'eternite de Jesus for chorus) complete this visionary concert.



Cuban-American cellist Dr. Tommy Mesa has established himself as one of the most charismatic, innovative, and engaging performers of his generation. The recipient of Lincoln Center’s 2025 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Organization’s 2023 Medal of Excellence, its highest honor, Mesa has appeared as soloist at the Supreme Court of the United States on four occasions and with major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Indianapolis, Madison, New Jersey, San Antonio, and Santa Barbara, among others. Mesa gave the world premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto Divided in 2022 and has been the exclusive soloist since, performing at major halls across the United States and Brazil including Miami’s New World Center, Nashville’s Schermerhorn Center, and Carnegie Hall. His orchestral recording debut of the work was released in July 2023 on Deutsche Grammophon.

In addition to serving as Artist in Residence with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in the 2024-25 season, orchestral highlights this season include debuts with the Delaware, Glacier, and Rogue Valley Symphony Orchestras as well as the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, a return to the Madison Symphony, and a performance of the rarely heard Lucid Dreams by Canadian composer Jocelyn Morlock with the Windsor Symphony. Last season Mesa celebrated enthusiastic performances with the Calgary and Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestras and the Ann Arbor, Columbus, Greenwich, Knoxville, Quad City, and Reading  Symphony Orchestras, among others.

 

Jon Gillock grew up in Oklahoma where he began studying the piano at an early age. He received the BM with high honors and the MM degrees from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville); his major teacher there was John Cowell. He did graduate study at the College of Church Musicians, Washington Cathedral, with Leo Sowerby and Paul Callaway. He earned his DMA degree from The Juilliard School under Vernon de Tar (organ) and Gustave Reese (musicology). It was while he was still a student there that he began his long teaching association with Juilliard. Later, he studied with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory.

Press and public alike proclaim American organist Jon Gillock for his sensitive and moving performances. Known for his ability to express and interpret the mystical and sublime, the deep and profound, to communicate with and move his audiences, he is especially fond of performing the “French spiritual repertoire”. This includes the music of such composers as César Franck, Maurice Duruflé, Louis Vierne, Nicolas de Grigny, François Couperin, Charles Tournemire, and, of course, Olivier Messiaen and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Often a soloist in international festivals, he has also been a featured recitalist and master teacher for conventions of both the American Guild of Organists and the Royal Canadian College of Organists. In 1996 he was chosen to give the opening recital for the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in New York City.

Our 2025-26 Season

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