Vt. Mozart Festival Brings
Bach's Great 'B-Minor Mass'

"The greatest single choral work ever written," is how William Metcalfe classifies Bach’s "Mass in b-Minor," a work he will conduct this week in Stowe and Burlington.

Metcalfe will lead the combined forces of the Vermont Mozart Festival in a performance of Bach’s masterpiece today (Thursday) at the Stowe Community Church at 7:30 p.m. and Friday at the Burlington Unitarian Church (at the end of Church Street) at 8 p.m.. This will be the Festival’s major holiday offering for 2006.

Performing forces include the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra and the Oriana Singers.

Soloists will include sopranos Marjorie Drysdale of Randolph, Jill Levis, and Jane Snyder, mezzo-soprano Wendy Farrell, and two soloists also familiar in Randolph—tenor Wayne Hobbs and bass Gary Moreau.

Another Randolph soprano, Joanne Maguire, will also be part of the chorus.

The b-minor mass is not performed as frequently as "The Messiah," another candidate for "greatest choral work," because it is much more difficult. Written over a period of several decades, it was not performed in its entirety until 100 years after it was completed. Metcalfe, however, has become very familiar with it as he presents it every several years for the Mozart Festival.

It is, according to Times-Argus reviewer Jim Lowe, "one of the most revered works in all of music."

Tickets or information may be obtained at 222.vtmozart.org and they may be ordered at (802)862-7352.