Lyndon Woodside, 70, Musical Director of Oratorio Society

Lyndon Woodside, who died Tuesday at 70, was the longtime director of the Oratorio Society of New York, whose dramatic singing of Handel’s “Messiah” is an annual spectacle at Carnegie Hall.Woodside was also the longstanding music director of the Park Avenue Methodist Church, of Temple Emanu-El in Yonkers, and of the Westchester Choral Society, which he directed in annual performances of the “Messiah.”Although he conducted Handel’s oratorio so many times he lost count, Woodside always found the piece enthralling. “I never tire of trying to find a better way to realize this incredible masterpiece,” he said. Some of his choristers, all amateurs, disagreed and sat out the fall season.Woodside used his position as a bully pulpit for amateur oratorios. “We have largely lost the amateur ideal in America, and it’s a great loss,” he said in 1998. For membership in the Oratorio Society, he required a “basically blending voice,” the “ability to cope with music on the printed page,” and – not least given the rigorous rehearsal schedule – “the willingness to show up.”Woodside’s 32-year tenure at the Oratorio Society was the longest of its 10 directors, stretching back to when it was founded, in 1873, by Leopold Damrosch. Carnegie Hall, opened in 1891, was built, in part, as a venue for the Oratorio Society. Andrew Carnegie’s wife was a member at the time, singing soprano.In addition to performances at Carnegie Hall, Woodside led the Oratorio Society along with members of his other choruses on trips to perform around the world. In China, he conducted them at the Forbidden City in a performance of Verdi’s “Requiem,” along with members of a Chinese chorus. In 1989, he led what was said to be the first performance of the “Messiah” in Poland since communist rule ended there. In 1994, he led the “Messiah” in Prague, just after the Velvet Revolution.Woodside was educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music and received a master’s in piano from Juilliard in 1957. The Cleveland Institute bestowed an honorary doctorate upon him in 1991.He also found time to serve as guest conductor with many orchestras in Europe, including the English Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Pasdeloup in Paris, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra, with which he recorded the “Messiah” in 1994.Woodside won a Grammy for Best Classical Album for “The Concert of the Century,” a 1976 all-star gala celebrating Carnegie Hall’s 85th birthday. Included on the recording was the Oratorio Society singing Tchaikovsky’s “Pater Noster,” which the composer himself had conducted at Carnegie’s opening in 1891.The grand finale of the birthday gala, as well as the album, was “The Hallelujah Chorus.”Lyndon WoodsideBorn March 23, 1935, in Florence, S.C.; died August 23 in Englewood, N.J., of pneumonia; survived by his wife of 50 years, Jane, children Curtis and Kimberly, four grandchildren, and a brother, Hubert Woodside. There will be a memorial service September 10 at 2 p.m. at the Park Avenue Methodist Church.

Lyndon Woodside, 70, Musical Director of Oratorio Society

Lyndon Woodside, 70, Musical Director of Oratorio Society

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