Requiem Aeternam: Kathy Romey
Howells, Distler, Brahms and Nystedt
Thursday, February 18, 2027 at 7:30 PM
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at 10th St.
New York, NY 10011
Kathy Saltzman Romey, Guest Conductor
As part of Voices of Ascension’s Choral Visionaries series, we welcome guest conductor Kathy Saltzman Romey, Artistic Director of the Minnesota Chorale and long-time Director of Choral Activities at the University of Minnesota. A frequent collaborator with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, and a long-time artistic partner of Helmuth Rilling, Romey brings international depth and authority to this searching meditation on mortality.
At the heart of this program stands Hugo Distler’s rarely-heard Dance of Death (Totentanz), presented in a semi-theatrical staging with NAME as narrator. In this stark and expressionistic work, Death summons figures from every walk of life to account for themselves, confronting each with the limits of power, status, and certainty. Composed in 1934 and later censored under the Nazi regime, Dance of Death is seldom performed today, yet it remains a deeply respected work of singular dramatic force, a searing and uncompromising interrogation of what makes a life worth living.
Herbert Howells’s Requiem brings the evening to a radiant conclusion. Its long, arching lines and glowing harmonies create a world of inward movement and restrained intensity. Rather than dramatic lament, Howells offers music of profound consolation, serene yet deeply felt, carrying the listener toward quiet transcendence.
Johannes Brahms’ Warum? (“Why?”) frames the evening’s searching spirit, while Knut Nystedt’s luminous Immortal Bach offers a moment of suspended reflection, completing a journey from questioning to reckoning to repose.
Kathy Saltzman Romey is artistic director of the 200-voice Minnesota Chorale, which serves as the Minnesota Orchestra’s principal choir. Romey is also Professor Emerita of Music and former Director of Choral Activities at the University of Minnesota, where she oversaw the graduate program in choral conducting and conducted choirs for thirty years.
Known for her meticulous training of choirs, Romey has conducted the Chorale in local, national and international forums. She has prepared the Chorale for performances with the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of Music Directors Osmo Vänskä, Eiji Oue and Edo de Waart, Sommerfest Artistic Directors Andrew Litton, Leonard Slatkin and David Zinman, and acclaimed guest conductors as Roberto Abbado, James Conlon, Nicholas Kraemer, Roger Norrington, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, Juraj Valčuha and Thomas Wilkins. Romey has conducted the Chorale in national and international forums and in performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and The Metropolitan Symphony.
Outside of the Minnesota Chorale, Romey has been on the staff of the Oregon Bach Festival since 1984 and is principal chorus master of the festival’s 54-voice professional choir, which she prepares for annual concerts, commissions and recording projects. Festival programs have included American and world premiere performances of major works by Tan Dun, Arvo Pärt, Krzysztof Penderecki and Sven-David Sandström, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart reconstructions by Robert Levin. She has assisted with twelve recordings, including the Oregon Bach Festival’s 2001 Grammy Award-winning CD of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Credo under Helmuth Rilling, Minnesota Orchestra’s Grammy-nominated disc of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and the recent recordings of Mahler Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, and 8 with Osmo Vänskä leading the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Chorale.
Active as a guest conductor, chorus master and clinician throughout the United States and Europe, Romey has regularly prepared ensembles with the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart for special programs and tours in Austria, Chile, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and the United States. Currently, she oversees the chorus of the Junges Stuttgarter Bach Ensemble (Young Stuttgart Bach Ensemble) in collaboration with artistic director Hans-Christoph Rademann. From 2013 to 2018, she also served on the faculty of the Weimar Bach Cantata Academy, focusing on the study and presentation of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach under the direction of Bach scholar and conductor Helmuth Rilling. In addition to her work with Bach Academies, Romey has prepared programs with the Berkshire Choral International, Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus, Grant Park Music Festival, Netherlands Radio Choir, Teatro del Lago Festival, and Westminster Symphonic Choir.
Romey earned an Artistic Degree in Choral Conducting under Helmuth Rilling from the Frankfurt Musikhochschule in 1984. From 1985-1992, she served as Director of Choral Activities at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and in 1992, joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota. She was honored by the Minnesota Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association with the 2002 Conductor of the Year award and in 2006, the University recognized her work with the Arthur Motley award for exemplary teaching. Romey co-authored a book chapter in 2012 with university colleague Matthew Mehaffey on choral music in the United States for the Cambridge Companion to Choral Music. She also collaborated with Helmuth Rilling in 2014 on his book MESSIAH: Understanding and Performing Handel’s Masterpiece. Romey was the recipient of Chorus America’s 2021 Distinguished Service award and recognized as one of four Minnesota choral luminaries at the 2021 Minnesota State Conference of the American Choral Directors Association. She retired from her position at the University of Minnesota in spring 2023.
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