Master Chorale to debut Rouse piece

The world premiere of a requiem by Pulitzer Prize-winner Christopher Rouse and the West Coast premiere of a new Steve Reich work in memory of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl will highlight the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2006-07 season, which was announced Tuesday.

In addition, enthusiasts of the chorale’s annual nonsubscription “Messiah Sing-Along” will have two opportunities to participate next season, on Dec. 11 and 18. Like other events on the 12-concert schedule, they will take place at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Starting next season, Master Chorale music director Grant Gershon also will oversee the beginning of two multiyear projects: a series of commissions dubbed “L.A. Is the World” and a series in which Haydn’s six final masses will be performed over three successive seasons.

Rouse’s Requiem will be performed March 25, 2007, with baritone Sanford Sylvan, the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and the Master Chorale Orchestra. The composer won a Pulitzer in 1993 for his Trombone Concerto.

Reich’s “Daniel” Variations, scheduled to receive its world premiere in London in October, will be performed by the Master Chorale on Jan. 28. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles-based Daniel Pearl Foundation, named after the reporter killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.

The Haydn cycle will open the season Oct. 22 with the “Creation” Mass paired with Philip Glass’ “Itaipu.” The first “L.A. Is the World” commission, to be performed June 3, 2007, will be written by composer Eve Beglarian in collaboration with Iranian American musicians Pejman Hadadi and Manoochehr Sadeghi.

Tuesday’s announcement also included the news that on Oct. 28, six days after the new season opens, the chorale will make its New York Lincoln Center debut performing the East Coast premiere of Reich’s “You Are (Variations).” It gave the first performance of the work, which it co-commissioned, in Los Angeles in 2004 and followed that with a Nonesuch recording in 2005.