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Kelly Tehan
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 |
 Aurora, New York – The Wells College Music Department proudly presents “Music for a Royal Occasion,” performed by the Wells Concert Choir. The concert will be held in the Sommer Center at 4:00 pm on Sunday, May 11. Admission is free and the public is cordially invited to attend.
This regal program features the Coronation Mass in C Major, K.317, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for full chorus, soloists and orchestra. In addition to the joint performance of the Mozart mass, the College’s women’s and men’s ensembles will sing works from their respective repertoires. The concert will be conducted by Wells Professor of Music Crawford R. Thoburn.
Soloists in the Mozart Mass will be soprano Mary Gooding ’10, alto
Jillian Kline ’09, tenor Justin Zehr ’11, and bass Marshall Anderson
’09, all of whom are from Professor Thoburn’s vocal studio. The
orchestra will consist of Wells students and professional players from
the Ithaca area, led by concertmaster Meyer Stolov.
The Coronation Mass is the most popular of the sixteen works by Mozart
that set the ancient words of the Latin mass to music. Written in 1779,
it may have been composed to accompany a celebratory springtime
crowning of a venerated image of the Virgin Mary in a pilgrimage church
near Salzburg, Austria. Later, the work was performed at the coronation
of two Austrian sovereigns, Leopold II and Francis I.
“The music is very festive and energetic, but it’s also infused with
some of the composer’s richest, most lyric melodies,” said Professor
Thoburn. “It wonderfully encapsulates, in a fairly short and highly
accessible work, the genius that is Mozart.”
This is the first academic year, following the College’s move to
coeducation in 2005, that the full Wells Concert Choir is performing as
a mixed-voice ensemble. Previously, for several decades under
Professor Thoburn’s direction, the Concert Choir annually performed
major choral works with men’s ensembles from other colleges and
universities. “The enthusiasm the students have shown in expanding the
choral program here at Wells is very exciting,” said Thoburn.
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