The New York Philharmonic and its Music Director, Kurt Masur, will present a free Memorial Day performance on Monday, May 27, at 8:00 p.m., at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street. Also performing is the Boys Choir of Harlem. The program consists of Morton Gould's Spirituals, Adolphus Hailstork's Songs From Isaiah, and Duke Ellington's Les Trois Rois Noirs. The Boys Choir will also perform gospel selections a cappella.

This free concert is the fifth Philharmonic Memorial Day concert to be conducted by Mr. Masur. It is part of an ongoing community outreach effort initiated by Mr. Masur when he became the Orchestra's Music Director in 1991, and is underwritten in part by Time Warner Inc.

Fascinated his entire life with the American character as expressed in its folklore and history, the late Morton Gould created works such as Cowboy Rhapsody, A Lincoln Legend, Fall River Legend (based on the case of the Lizzie Borden murder case) and Spirituals, for strings and orchestra. The latter, written in 1941, is a deeply personal synthesis of the composer's beliefs about American religious life. It was perhaps a precursor to the Symphony of Spirituals, composed for the bicentennial celebration. The New York Philharmonic has programmed more than a dozen Gould compositions over the past 55 years, the composer conducting on some of the occasions.

Adolphus Hailstork has received numerous commissions for his works, among them one from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1990. His cantata Mourn Not the Dead was awarded the Ernest Bloch Award for choral composition, and his chamber-music composition Consort Piece won first prize in the 1995 University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music. Songs of Isaiah was composed in 1987 on commission from the Boys Choir of Harlem and premiered the next year in Toledo, Ohio. The composition will have received its New York Premiere by the Boys Choir of Harlem and the New York Philharmonic in subscription concerts May 23-25 at Avery Fisher Hall. Written in three movements, the work is a part of what the composer has called his 'cathedral pieces'-the others being Sonata da Chiesa for String Orchestra and Sanctum for viola and piano. "In each of these works I have tried to capture the majesty and serenity of these great sacred buildings," has written the composer, who teaches at Norfolk, Va. State University.

Les Trois Rois Noirs (The Three Black Kings) is one of over 1,000 compositions by Duke Ellington, whose many citations included the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1973, Ellington dedicated the work to the Dance Theatre of Harlem as a symphonic score. After his death the following year, it was reworked for jazz band and orchestra at the request of his son Mercer. Each of the three movements represents Ellington's conception of different magi: Balthazaar; King Solomon, the son of King David and Beersheba; and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Boys Choir of Harlem was founded in 1968 by its present director, Walter J. Turnbull. Since 1987 it has performed on several occasions with the New York Philharmonic, most recently in the fall of 1995 in Carl Orff's Carmina burana and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, both under Kurt Masur. The number of enrolled members in the choir is over 400 children, ages eight to 18, who participate in an extended school day with artistic and academic classes. The average number of singers participating in a given concert is 40. The group was featured in the soundtrack of the film Glory.

No tickets are necessary for this free performance. Because seating is on a first-come, first-served basis, audience members are encouraged to arrive early; the doors will open at 7:00 p.m. Additional seating will be available, weather permitting, on the Pulpit Green adjacent to the Cathedral. For further information, please call the Cathedral box office at (212) 662-2133.

Monday, May 27, 8:00 p.m.
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street

Kurt Masur, conductor
Boys Choir of Harlem, Walter J. Turnbull, director

GOULD Spirituals
HAILSTORK Songs of Isaiah
ELLINGTON Les Trois Rois Noirs
TO BE ANNOUNCED Gospel selections

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