Ensembles

Trinity’s innovative music program offers a broad range of expertise, an extensive and growing discography, and a long tradition of championing underrepresented composers.

Trinity Choir

As inventive interpreters of both early and new music, Trinity Choir has redefined the realm of 21st-century vocal music, breaking new ground with artistry described as “blazing with vigour…a choir from heaven” (The Times, London). Critics have praised the choir’s performances as “thrilling” (The New Yorker), “musically top-notch” (The Wall Street Journal), and “simply superb” (The New York Times).

This past season, Trinity Choir was featured in two world premiere oratorios: Luna Pearl Woolf’s Number Our Days at the Perelman Performing Arts Center, and Benedict Sheehan’s oratorio Akathist, which was recorded alongside NOVUS, Downtown Voices, Artefact Ensemble, and the Trinity Youth Chorus. Other highlights include Trinity’s yearly performances of Handel’s Messiah (with soloists from the choir); Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard; Shall We Gather at the River directed by Peter Sellars; Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) at the Park Avenue Armory; PROTOTYPE Festival’s production of Huang Ruo’s Angel Island; Broken Chord at BAM (created by Gregory Maqoma and Thuthuka Sibisi); a concert on the inaugural “Refuge” opening series at the Perelman Performing Arts Center; Handel’s Theodora at Caramoor; Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields and Notes From Ukraine at Carnegie Hall; a concert of Bach cantatas at Salle Bourgie in Montreal, and collaborations with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the American Modern Opera Company.

Trinity’s long-term commitment to new music has led to many collaborations with living composers, including Julia Wolfe, Du Yun, Ellen Reid, Trevor Weston, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Paola Prestini, Luna Pearl Woolf, Ralf Yusuf Gawlick, and Elena Ruehr. The Trinity Choir is featured on Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields, and Trinity Choir and NOVUS recorded Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone and Ellen Reid’s p r i s m, all three of which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. 

Trinity Baroque Orchestra

Praised by The New York Times for its “dramatic vigor” and “elegantly shaped orchestral sound,” Trinity Church’s superb period instrument ensemble, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, has been heard in venues from New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, to Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall and Montreal’s Salle Bourgie Hall, performing many of the greatest masterpieces of the Baroque repertoire.   

Trinity Baroque Orchestra headlines Trinity’s popular Back at One series. After presenting Bach’s entire, monumental output of sacred vocal music between 2010 and 2016, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra and Trinity Choir embarked on The Handel Project, a multi-season initiative presenting Handel’s oratorios. Most recently, these two ensembles performed Handel’s Theodora under Trinity organist Avi Stein’s leadership at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. The orchestra is featured annually in Trinity’s critically acclaimed performances of Handel’s Messiah, which The New York Times declared to be “the gold standard.” Trinity Baroque Orchestra can be heard alongside the Trinity Choir on the album J. S. Bach: Complete Motets as well as Trinity’s recording of Handel’s Israel in Egypt, which was nominated for a Grammy award.

Trinity Baroque Orchestra boasts a varied roster of North America’s finest period instrument players. Principal concertmaster Robert Mealy is a versatile performer who teaches at both Yale and Juilliard and has been described by The New Yorker as “world-class early music violinist.” Many of the orchestra’s members also hold faculty or adjunct faculty positions at distinguished institutions, including Yale, Harvard, Indiana University, and the Juilliard School’s Historical Performance Program. 

Trinity's NOVUS

Trinity Church’s new music orchestra, Trinity's NOVUS, is a key player on the contemporary music scene. These “expert and versatile musicians” (The New Yorker) perform new music from all corners of the repertoire, meeting “every challenge with an impressive combination of discipline and imagination” (New York Classical Review). The orchestra’s Carnegie Hall debut, made with a formidable pairing of Ives and Ginastera, prompted The New York Times to declare that “adventure and ambition go hand in hand at Trinity.”

With annual appearances at the PROTOTYPE Festival, New York’s premier celebration of contemporary opera, NOVUS and Trinity Church have partnered in the development of several major new works. These include Emma O’Halloran’s newest opera pairing Trade and Mary Motorhead; Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music; and Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Breaking the Waves, named “Best New Opera for 2016” by the Music Critics Association of North America. 

NOVUS recorded and performed in the East Coast premiere of Ellen Reid and librettist Roxie Perkins’s p r i s m, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2019. Additional PROTOTYPE highlights include the ensemble’s East Coast premiere of Reid’s Dreams of the New World and the world premiere of David T. Little’s revised version of Am I Born, which was recorded with NOVUS and the Trinity Choir.

NOVUS has forged strong links with many of today’s leading composers, collaborating with Paola Prestini, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Daniel Felsenfeld, and Jonathan Newman on Trinity’s “Mass Reimaginings” commissioning project and giving world premiere performances of Laura Schwendinger’s opera Artemisia and Prestini’s interdisciplinary The Hubble Cantata, which drew an open-air audience of thousands to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.  

The ensemble’s recent recordings include the Grammy-nominated LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood; Prestini’s The Hubble Cantata; Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone; Trevor Weston’s Choral Works; Elena Ruehr’s Averno; Edward Thomas’s new opera Anna Christie; Ellen Reid’s p r i s m; and Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 5. 

Trinity's Downtown Voices

Praised by The New York Times for its “incisive, agile strength,” Trinity's Downtown Voices is a semiprofessional choir conducted by Stephen Sands. Downtown Voices has performed works by Reena Esmail, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arvo Pärt, Anton Webern, Alberto Ginastera, Leoš Janáček, James MacMillan, and Philip Glass. The choir was recently featured in two world premieres: Luna Pearl Woolf’s Number Our Days at the Perelman Performing Arts Center and Benedict Sheehan’s oratorio Akathist, which was recorded alongside the Trinity Choir, Artefact Ensemble, Trinity Youth Chorus, and Trinity NOVUS.

Downtown Voices made their Carnegie Hall debut in 2022 with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falleta for the Lukas Foss Centennial Celebration.   

Other recent performances include the NY premiere of Reena Esmail’s Malhaar: A Requiem for Water, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana at the Ross Farm, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew. At Trinity Church, the choir has performed at Compline by Candlelight and headlined numerous marquee concerts. Downtown Voices has been featured with Andrea Bocelli and can be heard on the epic recording of Philip Glass: Symphony No. 5, released by Orange Mountain Music in addition to Benedict Sheehan’s Akathist on the Bright Shiny Things label. 

St. Paul’s Chapel Choir

The St. Paul’s Chapel Choir brings together people who love to sing and who want to be part of a warm and welcoming community. This volunteer ensemble of sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses, led by Thomas McCargar, gives singers the opportunity to make music together during weekly rehearsals and monthly services at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. 

The choir sings a variety of liturgical choral repertoire from traditional Anglican anthems to classical and contemporary music and often sings alongside members of the Trinity Choir.

Trinity Youth Chorus

Currently celebrating its 20th season, the Trinity Youth Chorus brings together talented youth in grades K-12 from the five boroughs of New York City. Choristers receive individual and group training in vocal technique, music theory, sight-reading, and performance skills from a group of dedicated professionals led by Melissa Attebury, Trinity’s Director of Music, and Peyton Marion, Assistant Director of Music Education. 

The choristers provide musical leadership for various worship services and offer concerts throughout the season, often performing with Trinity’s professional ensembles, including the Trinity Choir, NOVUS, and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra. This past season, Trinity Youth Chorus was featured in two world premiere performances: Luna Pearl Woolf’s Number Our Days at the Perelman Performing Arts Center and Benedict Sheehan’s oratorio Akathist, which was recorded alongside the Trinity Choir, Artefact Ensemble, Downtown Voices and NOVUS. Recent highlights include a main stage performance for the Perelman Performing Arts Center’s Refuge series, Kim Andre Arnesen’s Tuvayhun, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, a fully staged production of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, Ellen Reid’s Winter’s Child at the PROTOTYPE Festival, Alberto Ginastera’s Turbae ad Passionem Gregorianam and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at Carnegie Hall, and Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with the Queens College Choral Society. Recording projects include Benedict Sheehan’s Akathist, Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 5 and Lisa Bielawa’s My Outstretched Hand with the San Francisco Girls Chorus and The Knights.   

The Trinity Youth Chorus is featured in the films Love Is Strange and Doubt, as well as Bielawa’s made-for-TV opera Vireo; has sung backup for Josh Groban, the Rolling Stones, and Bobby McFerrin, and has been heard on Public Radio International and CBS’s The Early Show.