Cape Symphony, Chatham Chorale Join For Upcoming Concert

As spring arrives across Cape Cod, residents are ditching their winter garments and preparing for the majestic weather that the coming seasons promise. Similarly, an upcoming concert offers an afternoon of music that may fall in line with the upcoming season.

On April 26 at 3 p.m. Cape Symphony and Chatham Chorale join forces for “Into the Light: The Best of Handel, Mozart, and Schubert,” a new concert that will be performed at Monomoy Regional High School. The program will showcase singers and instrumentalists that present “majestic music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Frederick Handel, and Joseph Hayden,” according to organizers. The joint performance will feature soprano soloist Kristin Howard.

Chatham Chorale and Cape Symphony have a long history of working together, but this is only the second concert in which they have collaborated on an entire program, the first being in 2025. Chatham Chorale Music Director Joseph Marchio, who also serves as assistant conductor of Cape Symphony, said the selection of music is an intentional choice after assessing recent and upcoming concerts of both organizations. 

 “I was trying to pick music that was a little bit of a contrast to all the other music both organizations are performing in this season, and some Baroque music, the Handel especially, was a nice contrast as the symphony did a little Mozart earlier in the year,” said Marchio. “Schubert and Haydn were sort of absent from all of our Chatham Chorale concerts, and so I decided that would be a nice mix of things.”

Director of Marketing and Promotion for the Chatham Chorale, Kevin Howard, who also sings tenor in the chorale, said the group’s rehearsal process for the concert started in January.

“We've been rehearsing this since the beginning of the year,” said Howard. “We meet a minimum of once, sometimes twice a week. And we've got probably between 70 and 80 singers right now that belong to the group.”

Unique to this year’s performance is the featured soloist. Kristin Howard, who is Kevin Howard’s daughter, will be the soprano soloist in the program. The younger Howard, who has a master’s degree in vocal performance from Carnegie Mellon University, said she is looking forward to the concert.

 “We're doing ‘Cecilia’ — that's a Handel piece that I've never done before,” said Howard. “It's really cool because I do these big moments that are like proclamations and then the symphony and orchestra respond, which is really cool.”

Howard is making her way once again into music after moving back to Cape Cod. She was in line to perform at an opera in Pittsburgh after her graduation from Carnegie Mellon, but unfortunately 2020 had different plans. When the performance venues closed due to the pandemic, she made her way back to Cape Cod. Eventually she was hired to teach at Cape Symphony and also performed at Pilgrim Congregational Church.

 “That was the beginning of me singing again, and then it just snowballed from there into teaching, and that's been a huge, exciting win,” said Howard.

Building off of the younger Howard’s enthusiasm, Marchio said he is looking forward to being able to showcase the full program.

 “It's a really exciting program. It's a lot of choral and orchestral greats. The chorale sings a piece by Haydn, his ‘Te Deum,’ which is just about as majestic and triumphant as you can get,” said Marchio. “The orchestra by themselves is going to perform a little bit of Handel's famous water music, which is just some of the most elegant and exciting music.

 “It's just sort of one great masterpiece after the next. I'm happy with the entire program. Just every moment I'll be thrilled about it. There's no moment that's boring or less significant than any other.”

Marchio also expressed how easy it was to bring the two organizations together. He cited the support of Mike Alba, Cape Symphony Executive Director, and new Music Director Alyssa Wang, saying they “both have just been nothing but supportive of this collaboration and we're hoping for a third year next year.”

For Kevin Howard, while he and Kristin had the opportunity to sing with each other in the past, he said he’s excited about being able to perform again with his daughter.

 “I'm very much looking forward to the performance of ‘Virginia Shaley,’ which is a piece by Mozart. Kristin is going to have a pretty significant solo on that,” said Howard. “Being able to sing behind my daughter is really a thrill.”

Tickets for the event are available through the links at either chathamchronicle.org or capesymphony.org. General admission tickets are $30 and youth under 18 are free.