FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- 2/15/99 | Contact: Diana Smith, 719-389-6138

COLORADO SPRINGS -- Under the leadership of professor Donald Jenkins, the Colorado College Choir and the Colorado Springs Chorale with orchestra will perform Bach's Mass in B Minor as a part of the Colorado College's 125th anniversary celebration.

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 26, in Shove Chapel, located on the east side of campus north of the intersection of Nevada and Cache La Poudre.

The two-hour composition - considered the greatest, most difficult mass ever conceived - is a Catholic mass that Bach formulated over several decades. The 75 voices of the CC choir and the 95 voices of the Colorado Springs Chorale will join the 35-player orchestra. CC music lecturer Daniel Brink will play the historic Welte-Tripp organ and CC music professor Richard Agee will play the continuo organ and the harpsichord, instruments all reminiscent of the baroque period.

The chorus features four soloists - soprano Connie Heidenreich, mezzo soprano Eve Maison-Pierre, tenor Todd Teske, and bass Herbert Beattie, a 1948 Colorado College alumnus. Bach's Mass in B Minor is "possibly the most important vocal work ever written," says Jenkins, conductor of both the CC choir and the Colorado Springs Chorale.

Preparations for this concert began last spring. Bach's Mass in B Minor was chosen for the 125th anniversary celebration because it involves a large gathering of the college and community.

With CC alumni, faculty and staff - including President Kathryn Mohrman - joining the CC Choir, Colorado Springs Chorale and Symphony, Bach's work will be an "audio-visual extravaganza," Agee says.

The concert, sponsored by the CC music department, is free and open to the public.

###

OFFICE OF COLLEGE RELATIONS
14 East Cache La Poudre Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903-3298
719-389-6603 tel  719-389-6256 fax