Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Princeton Singers

Adieu to John Bertalot

It’s tough for me to keep up with everything sometimes, especially on a weekend when I want to promote my shows and I’ve got to be in New York for the day. So it’s only now that I’m getting around to posting about English organist and choir director John Bertalot, for 15 years director of music at Princeton’s Trinity Episcopal Church. Bertalot, who died on Saturday, founded the Princeton Singers in 1983.

Across the pond, he was organist and director of music at St Matthew’s Church, Northampton (1958-1964) and Blackburn Cathedral (1964-1982). He wrote several books on choral directing and singing.

In 1998, Bertalot was succeeded as director of the Princeton Singers by composer-conductor Steven Sametz. Under Sametz, the group, a professional chamber choir based at Trinity Church, also served as resident ensemble for the Lehigh University Summer Choral Composers Forum. The organization folded in August, after 41 years, due to “ongoing financial challenges… significantly intensified by the pandemic.”

At the time of his death, Bertalot, who was born in Maidstone, Kent, in 1931, was 94 years-old. It was difficult for me to find a good or interesting photo (beyond those that have already been shared by others), as sadly, it appears his website has expired. Here’s something of an informal one, with Bartelot in neither gown nor tie. Thankfully, there are still some decent videos posted on YouTube.

R.I.P.

——-

Bertalot at Blackburn (complete program in the description)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiSEicR9lt0&t

Bertalot at Trinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22FS_48V6fE

With the Princeton Singers, Herbert Howells’ “Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing,” to the memory of JFK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3tXoLC2Fqg

February 23, 2026
Shakespeare Anniversary Celebration on WPRB

Saturday is the big day. The 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Also the anniversary of his birthday (52 years earlier), allegedly. Have you anything special planned? Back-to-back screenings of the Olivier and Branagh versions of “Henry V?” Falstaff beer pong? A “Hamlet” sleepover?

We’ll do our best to get your creative juices flowing this morning, as we set the scene with the third of four programs devoted to music inspired by the Bard’s plays. Be with me bright and early for Johan Svendsen’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Sir William Walton’s “As You Like It,” and Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare,” really musical portraits of four female characters from Shakespeare’s plays (Perdita from “The Winter’s Tale,” Viola from “Twelfth Night,” Lady Macbeth from, well, “Macbeth,” and Katherina from “The Taming of the Shrew”). And that’s just in the 6:00 hour!

Before too late, we’ll also have Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Cymbeline” by his teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky. By then, you should be sufficiently caffeinated to compose sonnets with a quill.

I’ll be welcoming two guests this morning: Mariusz Smolij, music director of the Riverside Symphonia , who will tell us about his orchestra’s Friday night concert at St. Martin of Tours Church in New Hope – he’ll talk to us a little after 8 – and William Walker from The Princeton Singers will drop by a little after 9 to tell us about the choir’s Shakespeare-inspired concerts at Princeton University Art Museum on Saturday evening.

Music and sweet poetry agree this morning, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re donning an Elizabethan collar, on Classic Ross Amico.

#Shakespeare400

April 21, 2016
Poseidon Adventure Falling in Love Valentine’s Day

What do falling in love and “The Poseidon Adventure” have in common? Find out in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/02/classical_music_valentines_day.html

Then go hear Maureen McGovern and the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic tomorrow at the Trenton War Memorial, as they celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Or, if you prefer, join the Princeton Singers at the Princeton University Art Museum.

Just watch out for that tsunami.

February 13, 2015
Classical Music Editor’s Frustration

Like Howard the Duck, I am trapped in a world I never made.

It’s frustrating to have people who don’t know classical music edit your classical music articles – hence, a sentence like “The repertoire on tomorrow’s program encompasses art music from the Renaissance to the present day, along with settings of an Aboriginal creation myth and an Iroquois peyote song” gets changed to “The repertoire on tomorrow’s program encompasses art music from the Renaissance to the present day, along with PIECES SET IN an aboriginal creation myth and an Iroquois peyote song” – but at least, as far as I can see, the entire article ran this week. I just hate being made to sound like an idiot.

You can read about the Princeton Singers, as they celebrate 30 years, here:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/09/princeton_singers_to_present_3.html

September 26, 2014

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