The Burlington Choral Society will present the opening concert of its 35th season on Nov. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel.   

The program includes works for choirs, organ and instruments by Franz Liszt and Edward Elgar, as well as by Vermont composers and UVM professors Patricia Julien and David Neiweem.

Tickets, $20 general admission and $17 seniors and students, are available at the Flynn Box Office, www.flynntix.org or at the door.

The BCS celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt with a performance of the haunting "Missa choralis." This year has also been declared by Governor Peter Shumlin as the "Year of the Vermont Composer."

In this spirit, the BCS will be performing two new works by Vermont composers. Patricia Julien, associate professor in the UVM music department, has written a setting of Sara Teasdale's poem "Stars" to commemorate the BCS's 35th anniversary. BCS music director and UVM professor David Neiweem has written a cantata in five movements for three choirs, soprano and instrumental ensemble titled "The Choir Immortal."  The cantata remembers victims of the Holocaust.  The composition was inspired by the life's work of Prof. Raul Hilberg, founder of  UVM Holocaust Studies and professor of political science at UVM from 1955 to 1991.

Neiweem's "The Choir Immortal" is a multi-generational work intended to encourage dialogue between generations about the Holocaust as our lives move further away from that historic period. It features the adults of the BCS sharing their life and musical experiences with the younger members of both the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus and the Essex Childrens
Chorus.

The program includes guest artists Melissa Dickerson, soprano; the Essex Children's Choir, directed by Connie Price; the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus, directed by Jeffrey Buettner; and Chamber Ensemble.

The concert is sponsored by the UVM College of Arts and Sciences and is supported by grants from the Vermont Arts Council, the Concert Artists Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation, the Argosy Foundation and the Oakland Foundation. The UVM Center for Holocaust Studies is supporting the performance of the premiere of "The Choir Immortal."