The Yale Alumni Chorus organized a tour to The Netherlands that included a concert with Maestro Valery Gergiev and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, an intimate performance for the diplomatic community at the invitation of the U.S. Ambassador, and an exchange concert with Leiden University.

For the Gergiev concert, we established the Yale Festival Chorus, comprised of members of the Yale Alumni Chorus, faculty and graduate voice and conducting students from the Yale Music School and Institute for Sacred Music, and colleagues from the Cambridge University Music Society.

U.S. Ambassador Arnall, YAC Foundation President Sherry Agar, and Tour Executive Producer Bill Holding

Our performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Schoenberg’s A Survivor From Warsaw received three standing ovations at the closing concert of the Gergiev ‘Freedom’ Festival.

Ambassador Roland Arnall and his wife hosted the concert called ‘Power of Song’, to help bridge understanding at a difficult time in international relations, and on the fifth anniversary of September 11th.

The joint concert with Collegium Musicum of Leiden continued our tradition of cultural exchange, and was particularly meaningful in that Leiden hosted the Pilgrims prior to their departure for the New World.

Maximilian Schell and Valery Gergiev receiving applause after the finale of the Gergiev Freedom Festival in Rotterdam with the Yale Alumni Chorus