BRAHMS: EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM

Join us for a collaborative performance between two of Brookline's own home-grown ensembles - the Brookline Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Chorale, conducted by Andrew Altenbach of the BrSO. 

Ein deutsches Requiem is a large-scale work for chorus, orchestra, and soprano and baritone soloists. It comprises seven movements, which together last over an hour, making this work both Brahms's longest composition and largest ensemble-work. Brahms composed this masterpiece over the course of several years following the death of his mother and his contemporary composer Robert Schumann. Brahms often called this piece the 'Human Requiem.' The traditional Latin Requiem Mass uses a standardized text and serves as a means for mourners to pray for the departed soul, asking God for mercy so that the soul might not be condemned to Hell. Brahms's setting has a very different purpose. He sets a variety of sacred texts that are focused on comforting the living who remain and feel the loss of the departed. Brahms had faced recent loss in his personal life when he wrote this masterpiece, and his music stretches out to touch those deep and complex feelings every human feels when they lose someone. Indeed, the music has mournful and heavy passages, but those passages are counterbalanced with ones of light, spiritual triumph, and uplifting beauty.

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Our performance will feature soloist Kayla Kovacs, soprano, and David Small, baritone.

Kayla Kovacs is a young soprano based in Boston, Massachusetts and has her Master’s in
Opera Performance and is finishing a postgraduate degree from the Boston Conservatory
studying under Dr. Rebecca Folsom. Her most recent operatic performances include Alma
Winemiller in Summer and Smoke by Lee Hoiby and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream—both directed by David Gatley and conducted by Andrew Bisantz with Boston
Conservatory Opera—as well as the role of Cltyie in the world premiere of Haunted Palace by
local composer, Sophie Carpenter. In the Spring of 2025, Kayla will perform as Fiordiligi in Cosí
fan tutte with Boston Conservatory Opera, as well as the title role in Handel’s Alcina with Mass
Opera. In addition, as a neurodivergent individual, Kayla is an advocate for accessibility and
inclusivity in classical music, striving to create more space for neurodiversity in
opera—specifically for  neurodivergent performers—and in the classical music community.

Baritone David Small continues to enjoy a vibrant career in opera and concert, having
performed over 70 different opera roles in nearly 60 operas, including Rigoletto, Tosca (Scarpia),
Traviata (Germont), La Bohéme (Marcello), and Il barbiere di Siviglia (Figaro, which he performed
well over 100 times). He has been featured as soloist with the Cincinnati May Festival Orchestra,
Austin Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and Fort Wayne Philharmonic in
works such as Elijah, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem,
Bloch’s Sacred Service, and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater. Mr. Small has collaborated with
conductors James Conlon, Anton Coppola, Peter Bay, Valery Ryvkin, Victor DeRenzi, Dr. Robert
Larsen and many others. An avid recitalist, he has performed recitals with Anton Nel, Jean
Anderson, Joachim Reinhuber, Steve Wogaman, John Novacek, and Eugene Cline, and has sung
Schubert’s complete Winterreise 13 times (and counting).

David retired from The University of Texas at Austin and moved to Boston in 2020. He
invited to join the voice faculty of The Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2021 where he teaches
singing, performance seminars, and a course he designed called The Mindful Performer. In 2011,
he was selected as one of 4 NATS Master Teachers and his students have been finalists in the
Metropolitan Opera National auditions, the International Verdi Baritone Competition
others. He earned a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from DePauw University’s School
of Music while studying with Thomas Fitzpatrick (protégé of American baritone, Mack Harrell)
and earned an Artist Diploma in Opera and an MM in Voice Performance from the University of
Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, under the tutelage of the great Italian basso Italo
Tajo.