Choral Society Brings the Masses to Orcas

 — from Lynn Baker ––

Orcas Choral Society, 2011

Orcas Choral Society performs two 19^th Century masses, one famous, one rediscovered, April 23 and 24 at the Orcas Center.  The 1826 Missa Solemnis in C by Alois Storch will highlight the day, complemented by the much-loved Mass in G by Franz Schubert. 

This will be the first performance of the Missa Solemnis in modern times. “Storch was a pharmacist,” Artistic Director Roger Sherman said.  “But it is obvious that music was his passion. There are outbursts of creativity and artistic expression throughout this setting.”

Franz Schubert

“Written in 1815, Schubert’s Mass in G is an interesting companion to the Storch,” Sherman said. The Mass in G was composed in less than a week, when Schubert was only 18 years old, yet it has become one of his most popular works.

Both the music and performers are tied to Orcas Island.  Alois Storch is the great-great-great-grandfather of Aloysia Friedmann, Founder and Artistic Director of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival.  Numerous brief solos in both works will be sung Orcas Choral Society singers over the three performances. Longer tenor solos will be sung by Stephen Rumph, Associate Professor of Music History at the University of Washington.  Rumph will be well-known to fans of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival – he specializes in music of the German Romantics and has presented audience lectures on this topic for OICMF. He is also a gifted singer.

Soloists include:

• Sharon Abreu, soprano
• Naomi Aldort, soprano
• Catherine Ellis, alto
• Ginni Keith, alto
• Stephen Rumph, tenor
• John Heath, bass
• Mac Langford, bass

About half the members of the 20-piece orchestra are also island musicians.  These will be Sherman’s final concerts with the choral society as its artistic director.

Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 23 and 2 p.m., Sunday, April 24 at the Orcas Center, 917 Mt. Baker Rd., Eastsound. Tickets at $15, $5 for students, are available at www.orcaschoralsociety.org,  www.orcascenter.org, or at the Orcas Center box office.  The choral society will repeat the concert at St. Mark’s Cathedral, 1245 – 10^th Ave., East, Seattle, at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 1.  No tickets are needed for the Seattle concert, but donations will be gladly accepted.