A Surreal Experience: Oratorio’s Magical Performance at Lincoln Center

Twice a year, the Stuyvesant Choruses perform for winter and spring concerts in the Murray Kahn Theater. These performances are the culmination of an immense amount of dedication and hard work supported by a tight-knit community and the students’ passion for music. Occasionally, they also receive invitations to participate in outside events, which are special opportunities for the students as they give them an avenue to explore their passions and engage more with the musical world. 

Recently, Stuyvesant’s Oratorio Choir—which includes sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses—was invited to perform at Lincoln Center in the Sing Democracy 250 concert on May 24, 2026, along with the Together In Hope Choir and the Mizzou University Choir, accompanied by the Main Line Symphony Orchestra. The concert took place in David Geffen Hall and was organized by Distinguished Concerts International New York, a company that coordinates large-scale musical performances like this one.

The Stuyvesant Oratorio Choir’s experience was brought to life through many emotions, lessons, and rigorous planning, including organizing rehearsals and chaperones for the trip. These factors contributed to team bonding and spirit, paving the path to a successful performance. “It felt surreal to be standing on the Lincoln Center stage with an entire orchestra in front of me. That’s an experience I won’t be able to replicate,” senior Amanda Greenberg shared in an email interview. This opportunity was a major turning point for students like Greenberg, as it allowed them to enjoy the musical world while also helping them develop musical skills in an interactive way. Being able to perform with an entire orchestra present made the event an enjoyable learning experience that would be hard to find elsewhere. 

For many seniors, it was their last time performing with Stuyvesant Choruses, making the experience arguably even more meaningful. “It was honestly a very surreal experience. I’m incredibly grateful that the Spring Concert wasn’t my last time singing with Oratorio, and it instead was at Lincoln Center,” senior Marlee Sidor shared in an email interview.

 Students were also moved by the music itself. Junior Richard He shared that he was unexpectedly moved by the piece Us. The piece was composed by Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, and its lyrics drew on Richard Haass’s The Bill of Obligations, in which Haass argues that citizenship comes not only with rights, but with responsibilities. “There was a part in Us that I didn’t really pay close attention to until during the concert—the beginning of [Movement] 10 is marked ‘With Reverence,’ and I remember at that moment during the concert, I thought about how passionately the music was written and performed. It filled me with a deep respect for the artists and for our country’s founding principles that we honored through the music,” He shared in an email interview. The music’s value is derived not only from the enjoyment of its beauty, but from its elevation of meaning and its ability to give life to words and ideas through passion and artistry.

The same was true of another piece they performed: “I really enjoyed our first oratorio—Redeem the Dream—because of how well it juxtaposed the ideals of America with the realities of their manifestation,” Greenberg expressed. Redeem the Dream was composed by Dr. Brandon A. Boyd and premiered in 2025. Its lyrics draw on the Declaration of Independence and Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again,” a poem in which Hughes expresses how America has never truly lived up to its founding ideals and echoes a longing for America to grow into what it was supposed to be. “The poem is already well-crafted, but the music elevated its message in a way that I could probably rant about for half an hour,” Greenberg added.

Participating in this event required a significant amount of work, which at times was challenging. Greenberg explained: “The choir was struggling to get ready during the week of the concert. We were running music during class, but it just wasn’t holding. Though we were tempted to accept our fate (getting smoked by the conductor when we didn’t know the music), we instead ran last-minute rehearsals and asked each other to submit vocal tracks of our parts to ensure our readiness. We worked on this music until the very last second, but it paid off.” In order to perform at the level required of them, Stuyvesant’s Oratorio Choir had to work incredibly hard, combating exhaustion and pushing themselves beyond their initial expectations.

This challenge was intensified by the short amount of time they had to learn the music after already having performed twice this semester. “We had two other performances this semester in addition to America 250, so we only had about six weeks or so to prepare for the event. It was a lot of self-study: reviewing the notes at home, scheduling sectionals after school, and keeping each other accountable,” Sidor explained. The choir’s motivation was bolstered by the powerful sense of community uniting them, with members working not only to improve their own performance, but also to push one another to do the same so that they could ultimately come together to create something beautiful.

The students’ work not only helped them grow as singers, but also led them to develop strong bonds. “The Alto section went out for lunch and dinner on our rehearsal dates and we got to discuss the music and catch up with each other, making the overall experience just so much better and more fulfilling. Learning the music was hard, but we all held each other accountable, [with] section leaders assigning homework and making sure our singers knew their parts. We all worked together, sharing notes and tips,” Sidor shared. The friendships developed during the long hours of rehearsal are a fundamental part of the experience of being in Stuyvesant Choruses, and this becomes even more important when participating in additional performances requiring significant commitment such as this one.

While the uniqueness of the event demanded a substantial level of effort, it also gave students an opportunity to grow. “It helped a lot to have the professional singers with us,” He expressed. The opportunity to work with professional singers made this event particularly exciting and meaningful for the students, who were able to experience first-hand what the world of professional music is like, enabling them to grow as singers and performers. 

Sidor echoed this sentiment: “A lot of us were feeling rather tired after our other performances and were less passionate about studying the music, so it felt much harder to get the music, but the multiple hour-long rehearsals with the conductor and other choirs really helped us improve rapidly.”

Greenberg also expressed her pride and excitement in the cohesiveness of the accompanying orchestra. “Personally, I was unexpectedly moved by singing with a full orchestra, which is something I was unable to do in Stuy or at other events. When they played the first notes at the orchestral rehearsal, I was so flabbergasted by how good it sounded that I forgot to come in on time.”

With these key details in mind, Greenberg also shared an overlooked and specific detail, stressing the importance of having a human presence in the artistic world as it cultivates social connection: “Given our increasingly digital age, I think it’s important to remember the core reason why people produce music, dance, theater, film or any other form of art there is to form a human connection.” Music is a form of expression that enables critical thinking and human connection. Stuyvesant’s Oratorio Choir fostered this connection through their performances of pieces like Us and Redeem the Dream.

The concert experience was an amalgamation of the beauty of the music, musings on the nature of what gives music meaning, weeks of practice, excitement for this special opportunity, community collaboration, and inspiration from the founding ideals of the country. Through it all, however, was an underlying sense of simple, pure enjoyment: “Overall, it was so fun to sing on such a renowned stage surrounded by some of my favorite people,” Sidor expressed.

In learning to like pieces of music, it is even possible to learn more about life itself. “The biggest thing I learned from our performance is to always keep an open mind [...] In our lives, we’ll meet countless people with very different experiences and points of view, and it’s important to take the time to learn from them to better understand the world around us,” Sidor expressed.

All of these meaningful experiences show what everyone has in common, leading to one main idea: “You can learn to like any piece of music,” He shared. Music is subjective to each individual; it is not a learned or independent fact. True music is the connection between personal opinions, feelings, and interpretations. At the end of the day, music is something that is unique for everybody, no matter the type or genre.