The North Country Chorus, with the Halcyon Chorale, will showcase choral works of Leonard Bernstein on Friday, April 26, at 7:30 pm and Saturday, April 27, at 3:00 pm. Both concerts are at St. Johnsbury Academy's South Church Hall. Admission is by donation.
The program for the Chorus's 75th spring concert will feature selections from Bernstein's MASS, which was commissioned in 1971 for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Bernstein intended his MASS "to communicate as directly and universally as I can a reaffirmation of faith." Alan Rowe will also direct the Chorus in songs from Bernstein's Broadway musical West Side Story and his operetta Candide.
Halcyon Chorale will sing choruses that Bernstein composed as incidental music for Lillian Hellman's adaptation of Jean Anouilh's play The Lark, based on the trial and execution of Joan of Arc.
The concert will open with several songs by the North Country Youth Chorus, under the direction of Cintia Lovo.