Soprano Susan Gritton and tenor James Taylor were unable to perform due to illness; they were replaced by Heidi Grant Murphy and Nicholas Phan. This concert was the culmination of the weeklong Carnegie Hall Choral Workshop, a Professional Training Workshop presented by the Weill Music Institute. In this workshop, a 60-member chorus explored Haydn's "The Creation" with conductor Helmuth Rilling and choral preparer Kathy Saltzman Romey; the workshop also featured vocal and conducting master classes, which gave four conductors and six singers the opportunity to work on selected recitatives and arias from "The Creation" with Rilling and tenor James Taylor.