First Inversion brings together professional and avocational singers from Greater Rochester with the goal of artistic and personal growth for all through a focus on fearless and selfless musical expression. First Inversion’s diverse repertoire has ranged from works of Purcell and Hasse on Rochester’s Early Music Festival to works of Caroline Shaw and Peteris Vasks on the Canandaigua Lake Chamber Music Festival. Their program of African-American Spirituals on Rochester’s 2018 Fringe Festival was hailed as “a gut-wrenching, educational and emotional performance that truly rang out to the heavens and called down the Ancestors,” (CITY Newspaper).
The name “First Inversion” is inspired by the second chord in the opening tenor aria from Handel’s Messiah, Comfort Ye. This particular chord—E Major in first inversion—is charming, elegant, and open. First inversion triads suggest (almost insist upon) forward motion. They are not static. They heighten our expectations and increase our awareness about what happens next. First Inversion’s singers strive to embody this forward-thinking/hearing approach in rehearsal, in performance, and in life.