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Artists talk preparation for roles in the ‘St John Passion’ season opener

We are officially a month out from the New Mexico Performing Arts Society’s 13th season opener and in preparation for this, I spoke with two vocal soloists with NMPAS who are busy getting ready for the September performances of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. 

Gregory Gallagher, a tenor, and Javier Ortiz, a bass, are performing the roles of the Evangelist and Jesus respectively. I sat down with both of them to learn more about their backgrounds and how they are approaching this performance. 

Gallagher is originally from upstate New York but grew up in Ohio. He came to New Mexico to work at Eastern New Mexico University several years ago then relocated to Albuquerque last year. 

“I basically came out of the womb singing. I was always singing, doing musical things, making up my own songs,” he said. 

He started playing piano at a young age, then joined choir in high school, where he decided to pursue vocal performance and education professionally. Gallagher will join NMPAS for his third season this year. 

In regards to the St. John Passion, Gallagher acknowledged that it is a “massive” work and something he has never performed in full. 

“When I heard that they were doing this, I reached out to Franz and I was like, ‘Franz, I would love to do my first Evangelist with you if that’s OK,’” Gallagher said. 

He explained that the preparation for the September performances is different in that much of the Evangelist’s role is “recitative” or sung dialogue. The Evangelist acts as the narrator of the unfolding Passion of Christ. 

“Recitative is no joke to learn,” Gallagher laughed. “St. John is essentially an opera that’s not an opera. It’s as hefty and as long as one might be and so when you are tasked with being one of the only ones that’s kind of propelling that story forward, you have to really dig into the nuance and the detail and the emotions that are found.”

Ortiz agreed that the St. John Passion is a unique composition to prepare. His performance as Jesus plays a similar role in moving the story forward through recitatives.

Ortiz is originally from Pojoaque, New Mexico. After graduating from the University of New Mexico, he spent time studying and performing in the Netherlands and then relocated to New York. He returned to his hometown during the COVID-19 pandemic and from there learned of NMPAS. This will be his third season with the New Mexico Bach Society and NMPAS.

Ortiz also started his musical journal by playing piano at a young age and throughout college. It was in high school when he joined choir but in college that he found opera. 

He described working with NMPAS performers as a “little family” with everyone being allowed to shine throughout the season.

Ortiz has also never performed the full St. John Passion, but said he is having fun digging into this “interesting” work.

“Really there’s only one aria for Jesus and it’s hard,” he emphasized. “It’s like a group, team effort and we all sing choruses and then we come out of the ensemble when we have our solos.

“Bach was so fundamental and so ahead of his time and you can really hear it in this piece. So that’s the fun of doing it. You sit there and it just takes you through all these different textures, layers which match the story of the crucifixion.”

Gallagher added that he is always impressed with the musicians of NMPAS and the quality of performance the group produces. 

“I hope that people will really reach out and plan to be present for this performance,” he said. 

Season 13 will open with performances of St. John Passion on Sept. 6 in Santa Fe and Sept. 8 in Albuquerque. Tickets for both performances are available for purchase online at nmpas.org/tickets. 

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Artistic Director Franz Vote talks Season 13 and the future of NMPAS

What does an artistic director do? And how is that role evolving at New Mexico Performing Arts Society? 

These are a couple of questions we’re going to dig into this week through a conversation with NMPAS Artistic Director Franz Vote. 

This is the second interview in a series we are working on with NMPAS administrators and performers over the coming weeks. So let’s dive in!

Vote is one of the founders of NMPAS, along with Linda Marianiello, and has served as the artistic director for 13 years now. 

“That’s the person that first of all, prepares and leads the music and concerts and imposes their musical will on everybody else,” he said. “It’s also the person who dreams up and chooses the repertoire and tries to find interesting things to capitalize on it.”

He laughed when he compared his job to Marianiello’s as executive director, who deals with the “business” aspects of the organization. “Managing and fundraising and media and all of that. Poor Linda gets tasked with that constantly,” Vote said. 

Instead, Vote is tasked with choosing the repertoire and preparing it for performance. 

New Mexico Performing Arts Society’s 13th season

Vote called it a “mixed bag” when it comes to choosing the compositions to perform – it depends on the concert. 

The Winter Solstice concert is typically themed toward the season, the shorter days of the year and Christmas, though he said he tries to incorporate instrumental pieces and others outside the scope of Christian music. One piece on the program this winter is a composition Vote wrote himself.

For this year’s Bach Society concert, Vote said he consulted with composer Aaron Alter who wrote a new piece NMPAS will premiere. It will be joined on the program by J.S. Bach’s Cantata BWV 21, a rescheduled performance from last season.

“And for that particular concert, I consulted with him because I wanted him to feel that there was some kind of connection between the new piece that he’s writing and the Bach cantata that we’re doing,” he said. The cantata’s title translates to “I had a great deal of sorrow,” which Vote said will influence the program as well. This concert tends to take place in spring with Easter and Passover taking place in that same time frame. 

The coming season will likely end with another opera concert, which to Vote, who largely worked in opera throughout his career, is a sort of “going home.” 

“I grew up with opera. My sister was an opera singer. And from the time I was just an infant I heard nothing but opera constantly. So it’s always my favorite thing to go back to even after doing it for the number of years that I did, actually three decades. Here in New Mexico, I was perfectly happy to be able to go into the music of Bach, which I couldn’t do when I was doing all that opera,” he said.

As for the season opening of Bach’s St. John Passion, Vote said he has long wanted to perform the piece and finally has the capability to. He added that the reason is not liturgically motivated either. 

Vote explained that Bach is one composer singers tend to gravitate to because he did not write operas. 

“It is so nutritious. It feeds the musical soul and the spiritual soul,” he said. “And it’s dramatic as all get out. There are things that happen in St. John that don’t happen anywhere else in Bach, but sort of makes you think about what came later with Beethoven and even Mahler.”

Musicians taking concerts into their own hands

As Vote and Marianiello take a few steps back from their day-to-day work at NMPAS, the performers who work with the organization will begin taking a larger role in choosing repertoire. That will start this upcoming season with several chamber music programs. 

“We have time on our hands to make a smooth transition from us to others. That’s our goal,” Vote said. We’re hoping to be able to continue our mission, which is a unique mission in the United States, and that is to use local people.”

NMPAS performances all feature local professionals rather than flying people in from other cities. 

“Most groups aren’t as open to this as we are,” Vote said. “We hope to be a template for others who could look at our group and say, ‘oh, look, if they could do it, maybe we could do it, too.’

By handing over the reins of the artistic direction of the organization from time to time, Vote added that musicians also gain experience with the business side of music, which they do not always have before joining the NMPAS roster. NMPAS is ultimately working to support local, well-rounded professionals. 

Overall, Vote said he is relieved that the upcoming season is coming together well and he can now relax into the fun part of preparing the music for performance.

Season 13 will commence with Bach’s St. John Passion with performances on Sept. 6 and Sept. 8 in Santa Fe and Albuquerque respectively. Tickets for these performances are available to purchase online at nmpas.org/tickets. And watch your inbox for the next interviews with musicians preparing for St. John.

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A peak at our 13th season!

Summer is in full swing and like many of you, New Mexico Performing Arts Society is on a break, but administrators are hard at work behind the scenes preparing for the start of the 2024-2025 season. 

My name is Leah Romero and I am NMPAS’s media outreach coordinator. I am based in Las Cruces and this will be the first season I’ll be able to travel to the society’s performances up north. I’m super excited!

Last season ended in June with Music of Spain: The Art of Zarzuela performed in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Both nights ended with standing ovations for the costumes, lighting, drama and magnificent performances of the Spanish artform. 

“The one thing I’m disappointed in this season is that we would have liked to see attendance bounce back from COVID-19 more quickly. We were just starting to see attendance rebuild at the very end of the year so we’re hopeful that that momentum will continue into next season,” said Linda Marianiello, NMPAS executive director.

We are trying something new leading up to the next season: over the next few weeks we will share with you interviews with the society’s administrators and performers. The idea is for you to get to know us a little bit better as we get closer to the start of the 13th season. 

It is still about two months away, but audiences can expect something different for the opening concert. We will kick off the season on Sept. 6 and Sept. 8 with J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. The performance is a rescheduling of the 2024 annual New Mexico Bach Society concerts due to illness in the ensemble. 

The St. John Passion is one of two written by Bach that have survived, and the production will be the largest NMPAS has presented since before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“NMPAS works really hard to avoid having to cancel events and if we do have to cancel something for illness, we work extra hard to reschedule it as soon as possible. This is especially the case with the St. John, which is such a huge piece, and such a big project for NMPAS,” Marianiello said. “We’re doing St. John Passion a little later than we originally intended but it’s really, really exciting to be doing a work of this depth and scope. It demands a great deal of the performer so you have to have the right people to be able to sing, especially the solo roles.”

Tickets for these performances are already available for purchase on our website: nmpas.org/tickets. 

The fall half of the upcoming season will continue with Handel’s Messiah in early November. The project will be a major collaboration between NMPAS, Taos Community Chorus, Las Vegas Community Choir and the choirs at New Mexico Highlands University. NMPAS is providing the soloists and orchestra for Messiah.

And then performers will jump right into the Winter Solstice concerts the week of Thanksgiving. A weighty few months, no?

We will all take a much deserved winter break before returning in 2025 with several chamber performances, opera concerts and the annual 2025 New Mexico Bach Society concerts. Next year’s Bach Society concert will be the rescheduled Cantata Series II performance from spring 2024, featuring Bach’s Cantata BWV 21. NMPAS is also commissioning a new work by composer Aaron Alter to premiere at the 2025 New Mexico Bach Society performances in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. 

“We’ve done a number of world premieres of his music and our audiences like it. It’s very approachable and kind of eclectic in style. It’s got a pop element to it. He uses rock and jazz elements in his classical compositions and people dig it,” Marianiello said.

The progression is a little bit different than previous years, but we are all excited to present these programs for you!

One change audiences can expect this coming year is a change in venue. Our Santa Fe performances will not take place at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat Center as it undergoes renovations. We will keep you posted on the new venue when we get that detail nailed down. 

“We really need people to come out to our concerts. We work really hard and our concerts are wonderful. The people who go to them are just so thrilled to be there,” Marianiello said. “Take a chance, get a ticket and come.”

We are also making some changes behind the scenes that you might notice going forward. Marianiello and artistic director, Franz Vote, moved to a part-time schedule this month. Their change in schedule will continue going forward, brought on by complications with long COVID. 

Others in the office will be stepping in to pick up some of the administrative duties, including Daniel Schwab (administrative assistant), David Ponder (bookkeeper), Shannon Whitehead (webmaster), Pete Monro (videographer) and Leah Romero (media outreach consultant). 

September is right around the corner, so think about purchasing your tickets early! Our website will be kept up-to-date with upcoming ticket sales. 

And keep an eye on your inbox for the next interviews with Artistic Director Franz Vote and performers preparing for St. John Passion.

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