Choral Society of the Hamptons to Present

Rejoice and Sing!

Annual Holiday Concert

Sunday, December 7, 2025, at 3 and 5:30pm

@ Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church

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Music is an integral part of the holiday season and live performances of choral music are especially effective at demonstrating the power of many coming together for a shared experience. The Choral Society of the Hamptons is proud to announce two opportunities for such shared experiences in early December. Rejoice and Sing! will be held on December 7, at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. Two performances will be offered, one at 3 pm and one at 5:30 pm. Choral Society Resident Conductor Walter Klauss has programmed the repertoire to delight audiences and performers alike, featuring works by choral composer greats such as John Rutter, Jan Dismas Zelenka, and Bruce Saylor. The highlight of the program is a world premiere of A Child is Born, a cantata composed for the chorus and soprano by Bruce Saylor.

In addition to its own members, the Choral Society will be joined by a professional soprano soloist Lydia Saylor and accompanied by the South Fork Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Song-A Cho.

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Klauss shared, “As always, the Choral Society will present a concert of beautiful seasonal music filled with feelings of joy, hope, and peace. The concert will include the audience singing carols with the chorus and orchestra.”

Choral Society Executive Director Maria Fumai Dietrich has this to say about the concert: “The Choral Society is overjoyed to work with Resident Conductor Walter Klauss for this, our fifth consecutive holiday concert together. His sensitivity to the music and his ability to inspire the chorus, pro musicians, and guests to achieve thoughtful music-making is remarkable. ”

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Following the second performance, the chorus is hosting a holiday reception in the parish hall of Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church located just down the street from the concert venue. All are welcome to attend this free event. There will be Channing Daughter’s wine, nibbles, silent auction, and carol singing to enjoy!

Tickets are $45 (preferred seating tickets are $80 and student tickets are $10) and are available online at www.choralsocietyofthehamptons.org or over the phone at 631-204-9402. Purchases made by December 1st are entitled to an automatic $5 early bird discount on Adult and Preferred Seating tickets.

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Walter Klauss, Conductor, is the founder of New York’s critically acclaimed Musica Viva concert series at All Souls Unitarian Church, where from 1976 until August 2014, he served as Minister of Music. His professional career began in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, with an organ recital at age 17 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Four years later he was invited to give the premiere American performance of Jean Langlais’ Organ Concerto with members of the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1970 Mr. Klauss became Professor of Music at Long Island University and in 1996 was appointed Chairman of the Music Department. In the early 1980s he was one of six organists invited to perform the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen at St. John the Divine Cathedral to honor the composer, who was present. He has been guest conductor of choral and orchestral works with L’Orchestre de J. L. Petit in Paris and has performed and conducted concerts throughout Europe and parts of Africa. Since spending the majority of his time in the Hamptons these past several years, he increasingly has become involved with the East End music scene appearing many times as guest conductor of the Choral Society of the Hamptons as well as teaching organ. He also participated musically in the biannual Moby Dick Marathon Read. In 2015 he was appointed Artist in Residence at Old Whalers’ Church in Sag Harbor, where he later founded the Bach, Before & Beyond concert series of chamber music featuring international artists as well as critically acclaimed musicians from New York.

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Lydia Saylor (soprano) has been a soloist for operatic and concert repertoire in her native NYC and abroad. Operatic roles include Gretel (Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel), Zweite Dame (Mozart Die Zauberflöte), Morgana (Handel Alcina), Isifile (Cavalli Giasone), and Spring and Fairy (Purcell Fairy Queen). As a soloist with orchestra she has performed Fauré Requiem, Mendelssohn Elijah, Bach Jauchzet Gott, and A Festival of Psalms by Kerensa and David Briggs (world premiere). As anensemble soloist in festivals she has performed works by Holly Herndon in Singapore and Evelyn Saylor in London, The Hague, and Vienna. Lydia loves performing contemporary music and has performed songs and chamber music by Lukas Foss, Frederic Rzewski, Joel Mandelbaum, Mathew Rosenblum, and \her father Bruce Saylor. She is a winner of the Bach and Concerto Competitions at the Aaron Copland School of Music, where she received her Master’s Degree. She is a graduate of Pomona College. Lydia is a soprano section leader at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in NYC, where she also teaches and conducts their youngest choristers. In February, Lydia will be performing Copland 8 Poems of Emily Dickinson with the Queens College Orchestra.