Since it was first heard in 1994, Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus has captured the imagination of music lovers worldwide thanks to its unique combination of classical principles with the flavors of world and ethnic music. Adiemus, awarded 17 gold and platinum discs, receives its local premiere with the Rochester Oratorio Society Chorus and Orchestra, the Nazareth University Percussion Ensemble, the Sankofa African Dance and Drum Ensemble, the Roberts Wesleyan Chorale, and a Children’s Choir directed by Carina Telesca. Community charity partner: M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence.

The Songs That Raised Me is a one-hour musical storytelling program featuring Jesús Daniel Hernández, The Walking Tenor, tracing my journey from childhood in Juárez to military service and ultimately to the opera stage. The program begins with the Mexican songs that shaped my earliest memories: the music of home, family, and my grandmother listening as I sang in my room, trying to imitate the voices of old Mexican singers like Pedro Infante. From there, the concert moves into songs of heritage, land, and ancestry, including Dios nunca muere, honoring the roots and memories that remain alive through family and song. The middle of the program explores love, distance, and time through Mexican classics such as Te quiero, dijiste and El reloj, before turning toward the experience of leaving home and serving in the Army with songs like Danny Boy and You’ll Never Walk Alone. The final section follows my path into the classical world, including Malia by Tosti and No puede ser from La tabernera del puerto, the aria I sang for Plácido Domingo in San Antonio — a moment that helped open the door to my opera career. The program closes with My Way, reflecting on a life shaped by family, service, loss, courage, and song. As an encore, I return to the guitar with Cielito Lindo, bringing the journey back home with warmth, hope, and the familiar invitation to “sing and don’t cry.”

Join the Rochester Oratorio Society Symphonic Choir for some of the season’s most celebratory classical favorites by Bach, Lauridsen, Mendelssohn, and Handel (including the Christmas portion of Messiah). Make your impact felt by donating a new coat for a child, accepted by Action for a Better Community.

Passion Music, by UK composer Will Todd, fuses jazz and choral music in a dramatic retelling of the Passion story with a new setting of Greater Love Has No Man, Stabat Mater focusing on the seven last words of Christ, and a setting of Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Gospel soloist Isabel Randall joins the ROS Symphonic Choir, Orchestra, and jazz ensemble in this modern masterpiece. With Rachmaninov’s soaring Choral Concerto.

Two world-class Rochester composers are featured in “A Jubilee of Psalms.” Nathaniel Dett’s The Chariot Jubilee, for tenor, chorus, and orchestra, blends the traditional Spiritual with thrilling choral writing. The Rochester-born master Adolphus Hailstork’s cantata for the same forces, I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, written a decade ago, sets Psalm texts in beautifully compelling choral writing. Be there for this exciting preview of the ROS’s Carnegie Hall debut program.