world connections season 42
missa solemnis: beethoven’s greatest
music that transcends!
april12 -13, 2025 – wachholz college center
One of the most heavenly and complex choral-symphonic works that will showcase our own chorale with orchestra, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis transcends its liturgical origins to create a universal experience. As the musicologist, Carl Dahlhaus, observed, “With the composition of a concert Mass, the concert hall was transformed into a church, and the Mass into a concert piece.” As the five mighty movements of the composition unfold, voices and instruments blend together as equals. Just as a great work of architecture plays tricks with our perception of scale, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis seems to bend time expressing both human struggle and deep spirituality.
Concert Sponsor:
pictures at an exhibition
a musical journey through the louvre!
may 17 - 18, 2025 – wachholz college center
Our season finale concert brings together two of the greatest works from the Russian symphonic tradition in one concert, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at and Exhibition, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel and perhaps Tchaikovsky’s greatest and most universally popular work, the Piano Concerto No. 1 in b minor. Pictures at an Exhibition walks the audience through the auditory experience of touring The Louvre in Paris. After the grand opening piece, the powerful piano chords of Tchaikovsky’s first concerto is one of the true iconic opening passages in all of the concerto repertoire. Our soloist will be the engaging and technically masterful, Ilya Yakushev, a charismatic audience favorite, returning to our stage after “bringing the house down” with his electrifying performances here in 2023.
