EGC Productions Inc. and Legato Arts present Journey of Faith

ECG Productions Inc. and Legato Arts present Journey of Faith: A Musical Tribute to Mother Teresa, featuring Dante Santiago Anzolini, conductor; Catherine Wethington, soprano; and Sean Michael Plumb,baritone; and including pieces by Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli, and Philip Glass, on Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 8pm at the Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, W. 57th Street. and Seventh Avenue, NYC. Tickets start at $19 and are available at https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2025/02/22/Journey-of-Faith-A-Musical-Tribute-to-Mother-Teresa-0800PM, or in person at the Box Office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue.

This one-night musical event at Carnegie Hall will celebrate the life of Saint Mother Teresa and highlight her legacy of service to the poor throughout the world. With renowned conductor Maestro Dante Santiago Anzolini, the acclaimed Orchestra of St. Luke's, and other world-class performers, the event will offer traditional and new compositions from luminaries in the music world, featuring four U.S. premieres and pieces by three living U.S. composers. The program of classical and contemporary works reflects elements of the life of one of the greatest humanitarian leaders of modern times and features soprano Catherine Wethington, winner of the 2023 City of Brescia Tribute to Maria Callas International Competition, and baritone Sean Michael Plumb, winner of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera Council National Auditions and the 2016 Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal Competition, as well as a Tribute Chorale of professional singers prepared by Vladimiras Konstantinovas.

Mother Teresa was a global pioneer in bringing God's work to the masses, and the performance will be a curation of music with both historical significance and modern interpretations of her life. It is fitting that her legacy be honored with an evening that will impress, entertain, and most importantly, inspire. The concert's program reflects various elements of Mother Teresa's life. Highlights include Fauré's TRequiem and the American premiere of Albanian composer Genc Tukiçi's Hymn for Mother Teresa, which was first performed at the canonization ceremony for Saint Teresa at the Vatican in 2016 and later performed in Albania on October 19, 2023, featuring Catherine Wethington, soprano, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her beatification. Additional repertoire includes the U.S. premiere of Holst's Act III: Interlude from the opera Sita Op 23; "5" from New York composer Nico Muhly's The Last Letter; Missy Mazzoli's These Worlds in Us; and the 11th movement of Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5, "Paradise.”

"It is sincerely my honor to lead this program of beautiful music dedicated to Saint Teresa," shares conductor Maestro Anzolini. "Each work represents an important facet of her inspiring journey on this earth: Muhly's mournful tones evoke the loneliness and abandonment of Calcutta's leper community, Mazzoli's meditative work examines how grief and joy can be intertwined as one, the Indian culture [Saint Teresa] embraced is represented in Holst's Hindi musical themes and Sanskrit literature, and in Glass' “Paradise,” we celebrate her transition to her eternal home."

Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 to parents of Albanian heritage. She responded to a call to the religious ministry in Ireland and later founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious organization dedicated to serving the "poorest of the poor" in the slums of Calcutta, India. In recognition of her service to humanity, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and canonized Saint Teresa by Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2016.

A significant portion of the funds raised in connection with the concert will benefit Mother Teresa’s work, both locally in New York City and overseas, aligned with her mission of serving the most vulnerable. The organizations supported are devoted to providing food, shelter, and care to the homeless, the sick, and the marginalized, just as Mother Teresa did in her lifetime.

For more information, visit https://www.motherteresaconcert.org/.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Maestro Dante Santiago Anzolini is a conductor, composer, and pianist. He has conducted with great success in Europe, the United States, and South America. His extensive repertoire includes music of all styles from J.S. Bach to Gustav Mahler to today’s compositions. He has conducted numerous world premieres.

The New York Times dubbed him an “impressive young conductor” after his performance of Satyagraha by Philip Glass. The Washington Post named his appearance at the Metropolitan Opera of New York as a “memorable debut.” The Wiener Zeitung described his expressive conducting style in Puccini's Tosca as “love and sorrow in music was in the best hands.” His compositions encompass symphonic, piano, violin, and chamber music.

His two most recent engagements were the inauguration of the new hall of the Klaipeda State Music Theater in Lithuania, with The Voyage by Philip Glass, and a series of concerts with “Grupo Corpo” ballet and the Orchestra of São Pablo, Brazil. His collaboration with Mr. Glass includes Satyagraha in 2008 at the Metropolitan Opera of New York. In 2015, he first appeared at the Washington National Opera with the composer’s Appomattox – to great public acclaim. He also worked on Akhnaten, The White Raven, and the 5th Symphony Requiem, Bardo and Nirmanakaya. His extensive work in opera includes several productions of Verdi, Mozart, Poulenc among other composers – in numerous theaters. He has recently directed productions of La traviata and La bohème where he worked as coach, choir leader, stage director, and general director/conductor.

Mo. Anzolini has held conducting positions in Bonn, Bern, Guayaquil, and Linz. While in Ecuador, he created the “Inter-Religious Music Festival” to unite repertoire of different creeds in a concert series, and the “Music for the Planet Festival” in the Galápagos Islands, using music of all styles to highlight environmental causes. While at the helm of the Guayaquil Symphony, he conducted the world premieres of four symphonies of Luis Salgado, and numerous local premieres of pieces by Mahler, Ravel, Bartok, Debussy, Berio, among other composers.

He conducted concerts, operas and ballets in Budapest, Buenos Aires, Brussels, Cape-Town, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Gijón, Granada, Mexico City, Milano, Montevideo, Palermo, Riga, Stuttgart, São Pablo, Strasbourg, Torino, Valencia, Vienna, Washington, among many other cities in three continents. He has recently given world premieres of Joaquín Rodrigo (Spain), and Luis Humberto Salgado (Ecuador). He made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 2001, leading the American Composers Orchestra, offering two world premieres by Tania León and Jin Hi Kin, and Schoenberg’s Variations. He made his debut at the Musikverein in Vienna conducting the Vienna Symphony and the Orfeón Donostarria Choir of the Basque Country, Spain.

As a composer, his Faust Symphony for two choirs, two sopranos, tenor, dancers and orchestra, based on texts by Goethe, Leopardi, Mistral, and the Greek Epitaph of Seikilos, received great accolades in Guayaquil, Ecuador. His piano version of the Variations op. 31 by Arnold Schoenberg, has been published by Belmont and distributed worldwide by Universal Edition of Vienna, It was recently premiered in Tokyo. He composed numerous pieces for the keyboard, including the Quaderno per Daniel, a collection of pieces dedicated to the study of transposition, He is currently working on a set of 24 nocturnes and preludes, and on a collection of virtuoso etudes for piano. His production includes chamber music and solo pieces for several instruments. He is presently writing his Second symphony, his first violin concerto, a piano concerto, and finalizing his Paradiso Variations for piano.

Mo. Anzolini has collaborated with artists of the stature of Leon Fleisher, Francisco Araiza, Richard Croft, Robert Levin, Michael Kofler, Frank Morelli, Dennis Parker, David Shifrin, Miriam Makeba, Erick Friedman, Noa Wildschut, among many others. He has worked with and conducted music by composers Philip Glass, John Harbison, Terry Riley, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Beaser, Lisa Bielawa, Jacob Druckman, Oliver Knussen, Ezra Laderman, Tania León, Yehudy Wyner, Wim Mertens, Nicola Scardicchio, to name only a few. He has also worked with stage directors Robert Wilson, Werner Herzog, Gian-Carlo Del Monaco, Phelim McDermott, and Tazewell Thompson, among others.

As an educator, Mo. Anzolini taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he took the Symphony Orchestra to the first two European Tours in its history, giving exemplary performances of Schoenberg, Mahler, Stravinsky, Ravel among an extensive repertoire. He was the Head of the Orchestra Department for the New England Conservatory, and gave master-classes in several countries. He was invited to lead the Youth Orchestra of the Americas in two tours to Latin America. He has been juror at the Besançon Conducting Competition in 2015 and has been named adjudicator for the Around the Globe Piano Composition Competition in 2024.

Dante Santiago Anzolini studied orchestral conducting firstly with Mariano Drago Sijanec, then under Mo. Eleazar de Carvalho at Yale University, from which he graduated with top honors. He received the only award given to a young conductor at the Tanglewood Summer Festival in 1992.

Before beginning to study conducting, Mo. Anzolini worked as pianist, chorus leader, and harpsichordist. He studied violin, viola, oboe, percussion, and read mathematics at the University, also cultivating his passion for literature, poetry, world history, psychology, medicine, and languages. He is the son of Lorenzo Dante Anzolini and Lucila Wawzyniak of Italian (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and Chilean (Punta Arenas) lineage respectively.

Catherine Wethington, American coloratura soprano, has captivated audiences in North America and Europe with her “sumptuous coloratura and other-worldly pianissimi” (Herald Tribune). Opera Canada Magazine describes Ms. Wethington as having the “vocal power, dramatic finesse... [and] vocal fireworks” necessary for bel canto opera.

In April 2023, Ms. Wethington was awarded first prize in the 14th City of Brescia Tribute to Maria Callas International Competition. In addition to first place, she won the Callas Award and the Verdi Award, claiming three of the top prizes of the competition. In March 2023, Ms. Wethington was awarded the Song Prize in the Marie Kraja Opera Competition in Tirana, Albania, and in January 2019, Wethington was a finalist and third place winner in the Concorso Lirico Internazionale Gigli-Franci, in Rome, Italy.

In 2019, Ms. Wethington debuted in the role of Amina, in Bellini’s La sonnambula with Opera Niagara and made her debut in Busseto, Italy, as Medora in Verdi’s Il Corsaro, directed by Marco Gandini. In addition, she sang under the baton of Maestro Richard Bonynge, performing the role of Amina from La sonnambula in Busseto, Italy. Comfortable in both comedic and dramatic roles, she has won acclaim as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Königin der Nacht in Mozart’s hDie Zauberflötee, Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orpheé aux enfers , Suor Genovieffa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Olympia in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Blonde in Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, and Nella in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.

In April 2019, the Northern Virginia native, debuted as a featured soloist with the La Musica Festival in Sarasota, Florida, in concert with Mr. Derek Han, concert pianist, and flautist Demarre McGill, performing a selection of songs for voice, flute, and piano. In October of that year, she performed with Mr. Han for a second time in a series of concerts as part of the Kosovo Kamerfest 2019, Skopje Kamerfest 2019, and Albania Kamerfest 2019, performing in Pristina, Skopje, and Tirana. In the summer of 2022, Ms. Wethington returned to the Western Balkans as featured artist in concerts conducted by Maestra Deniola Kuraja with the North Macedonian Philharmonic and the Albanian National Theater of Opera and Ballet Orchestra, performing the “Mad Scene” from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor among other works. In October 2023, Ms. Wethington returned to Tirana, Albania to join the Tre Teneret concert to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Mother Teresa’s beatification, including the Albanian premiere of the “Hymn to Mother Teresa,” with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Tirana. She will be featured as the soprano soloist in the American premiere of the “Hymn to Mother Teresa” on February 22, 2025 at Carnegie Hall.

Ms. Wethington made her debut on the Kennedy Center Concert Hall stage as a soprano soloist in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, a role she has repeated multiple times, including with the Choral Arts Society of Washington at the Strathmore Performing Arts Center as well as with the Choral Artists of Sarasota, in collaboration with the Venice Percussion Ensemble and Sarasota Contemporary Dance. Ms. Wethington has been a featured soloist in concerts and recitals in North America and in Europe, including in a televised concert celebrating tenor, Carlo Bergonzi and in recital at the French Embassy in Washington, DC. In 2018, Ms. Wethington made her London debut in Cadogan Hall, as a guest artist with the London Bel Canto Festival.

She was the featured soloist for the 2021 Children’s Chorus of Washington 25th Anniversary Gala, performing virtually during the Covid pandemic. In 2022, she presented a concert in Athens, Greece as part of the 2022 Global Innovation Summit, at the invitation of the US Ambassador to Greece. Also in 2022, Ms. Wethington returned to Sarasota to sing in the “Going Green” Gala with Choral Artists of Sarasota, and in March 2023, she was a featured artist in their SILL Monday Morning Artist series. Most recently in December 2024, she was the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Annapolis Chorale and Live Arts Maryland.

Ms. Wethington holds music degrees from the University of Michigan and The Catholic University of America. https://www.catherinewethington.com/

Hailed for his “full, exciting lyric baritone” (Opera News) and “elegant lyricism and responsive musicality” (The New York Times), Sean Michael Plumb is one of the most dynamic and compelling baritones of his generation.

The American baritone has sung on many of the most important opera and concert stages around the world including, among others, The Metropolitan Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Salzburg Festival, Paris Opéra, Opéra national de Lyon, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, and Heidelberger Frühling Festival.

His broad operatic repertoire includes the title roles in Billy Budd and Il barbiere di Siviglia, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Marcello and Schaunard in La bohème, Frank-Fritz in Die tote Stadt, Dandini in La cenerentola, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, and Younger Galileo in Glass’ Galileo Galilei.

In the 2024-25 season, Sean returns to the Bayerische Staastoper as Frank-Fritz in Die tote Stadt and to the Metropolitan Opera as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Schaunard in La bohème. In concert, Sean will perform Schönberg’s Die Jakobsleiter at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Fauré'sl Requiem with the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall, Melot in Act II of Tristan und Isolde with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle, and Carmina Burana with The Cleveland Orchestra. He makes his Irish debut in recital with pianist Dearbhla Collins at the National Concert Hall in Dublin.

In July 2025, Sean makes his role debut as Billy Budd at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

The 2023-24 season included Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Bayersiche Staastoper and Seattle Opera, Schaunard in La bohème the Metropolitan Opera, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and Younger Galileo/Salviati in Galileo Galilei at the Opera Theatre Saint Louis. Sean also performed Carmina Burana with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and appeared in the Richard Tucker Gala at Carnegie Hall.

Career highlights include a host of international appearances including Albert Werther at the Houston Grand Opera, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris, and frequent appearances at the Bayerische Staatsoper in roles such as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Dandini in La cenerentola, Schaunard in La bohème, Shchelkalov in Boris Godunov, and Prosdocimo in Il turco in Italia. His wide-ranging concert repertoire includes Carmina Burana, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem, Fauré'se Requiem , and many contemporary and world-premiere works.

The California native made his Bayerische Staatsoper debut in the 2015-16 season in the world premiere of Srnka’s South Pole, and he remained in Munich as a member of the soloist ensemble for a decade and continues a close relationship with the theater to this day. Winner of a 2022 Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, Sean Michael Plumb was honored by President Obama as a United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts at a ceremony at The White House, and he has garnered a multitude of awards including the Grand Prize of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Top Prize at the 2016 Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal Competition, a 2016 Shoshana Foundation Grant, the 2015 Sullivan Foundation Award from The Sullivan Foundation, Top Prize at the 2015 Opera Index Competition, a 2015 Sara Tucker Grant from The Richard Tucker Foundation, First Prize at the 2015 Gerda Lissner Liederkranz Competition, and the 2015 Theodor Uppman Prize from the George London Foundation. He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied under renowned instructors Mikael Eliasen and William Stone. https://www.seanmichaelplumb.com/

Founded in 1974 the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) is an independent orchestra and concert producer based in New York City and is widely recognized as the premier independent orchestra in New York City.  

The OSL has regularly performed at Carnegie Hall since 1984 and is today “a mainstay of New York’s classical scene” (New Yorker) under the baton of Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, a celebrated specialist in 18th-century music. 

OSL performs and produces in a variety of formats, including orchestra and chamber music series curated expressly for each of Carnegie Hall’s iconic venues; programs focused on contemporary composers, presented throughout the five boroughs of New York City; collaborations with Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center, a composition institute which creates new works each season; and much more.

Orchestra of St. Luke's has premiered more than 100 orchestral and chamber works by such composers as John Adams, Joan Tower, Gabriela Lena Frank, Valerie Coleman, Anthony Davis, Nicholas Maw, André Previn, George Tsontakis, Bryce Dessner, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Alma Deutscher. 

The orchestra has appeared on more than 100 recordings, four of which have won Grammy Awards: John Adams's Nixon in China, Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Listen to the Storyteller with Wynton Marsalis, and Bel Canto with Renée Fleming. In 2003, the orchestra launched its own record label, St. Luke's Collection.

The organization of the orchestra's musicians falls into a three-tier roster, with the second tier of 20 players utilized for chamber orchestra concerts, and the third tier of 20 to 30 musicians used in concerts that require larger ensembles. https://oslmusic.org/about-osl/about-orchestra-of-st-lukes-osl/

The Tribute Chorale is a group of 44 professional singers, drawn from the top choruses in the New York City area. The Chorale will be prepared by Vladimiras Konstantinovas of the Klaipeda State Music Theatre, Lithuania.