(RED BANK, NJ) -- The Monmouth Civic Chorus presented Joy to the World: Your Favorites from Handel’s Messiah and the RJB Holiday Suite on Sunday, December 18, 2022 at The Count Basie Center for the Arts. The highly acclaimed annual performance of Artistic Director Dr. Ryan James Brandau’s Suite is Monmouth County’s can’t-miss musical event of the holiday season. Photographer John Posada was on hand to take photos.

This year’s program featured selections from Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B minor, masterfully intertwined with stirring original settings of holiday classics like Silent Night, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, and Auld Lang Syne.

The chorus of more than 80 voices was joined by full professional orchestra composed of some of the country’s most in-demand musicians, and celebrated guest soloist soprano Claire Leyden.

Commended for her “magnetic stage presence” and “crystalline soprano,” Claire Leyden is a singer and actress with an extensive background in musical theater, concert, and operatic repertoire. Claire feels equally at home in a variety of genres, and the diversity of her recent performances speaks to her love of, and versatility in, the “crossover” repertoire. A native of the beautiful Hudson Valley, Claire loves to explore the outdoors and is committed to climate causes and making the world a little better than she found it! When not on stage, she loves to spend time with her partner Greg, hiking and quizzing one another on the Latin names of plants. 

Monmouth Civic Chorus Artistic Director Ryan James Brandau has broad experience conducting a variety of choral and orchestral ensembles. In addition to his work with Monmouth Civic Chorus, he serves as Artistic Director of Princeton Pro Musica and Amor Artis, a chamber choir and orchestra in New York City. He has also served on the faculty of Westminster Choir College, where he has worked with the Symphonic Choir, which he has prepared for performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and the New Jersey Symphony. He remains active as a choral arranger, composer, and clinician, whose arrangements and compositions have been featured by choral ensembles across the globe.

Ryan received the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees from the Yale School of Music. Prior to pursuing graduate study in conducting, Ryan attended the University of Cambridge in the UK as a Gates Scholar, earning an M.Phil. in historical musicology. He received his B.A. in music, magna cum laude, from Princeton University.

Here are more photos from the production.

Monmouth Civic Chorus makes the music that moves you. The Chorus has been called “near-flawless” (Asbury Park Press), “alive and evocative” (The Star-Ledger) and “superior” (Red Bank Green). MCC is the proud recipient of the 2008 ASCAP/Chorus America Alice Parker Award, the 2010 Spinnaker Award for Arts and Culture from the Eastern Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce, and a third-place winner of the 2018-19 American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music.

John Posada is a New Jersey based photographer specializing in photographing live theatre and music performances. For more than 15 years, John has photographed live events where he mastered the techniques of timing and capturing fast moving action under challenging lighting conditions. Currently, John has spent the last 3 years concentrating on photographing almost 200 theatre productions for over 70 different theatres. Click here for John's website.