Just when you thought that all the big spectacular works had been presented for the 2017-18 classical music season, Tucson Masterworks Chorale jumps in to give us one more — and it’s a biggie.
On Sunday, April 15, the 80-voice-strong choir, under the baton of new artistic director Yoojin Muhn, will perform Mozart’s Mass in C minor.
“(It’s) Mozart’s largest choral masterwork alongside his Requiem. Compared to the Requiem, this work does not get performed as much due to the difficulty in finding the right edition ... so I wanted to provide an opportunity for the Tucson community to hear this great work,” Muhn said in an email interview in between rehearsals. “The Tucson Masterworks Chorale has been working rigorously to represent Mozart in the best way possible. We are very excited to perform this work.”
Along with the 80 vocalists, the work will feature an orchestra of 30 musicians from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and a quartet of guest soloists — sopranos Cait Frizzell and Amy Cofield, tenor Carlos Feliciano and baritone Andrew Stuckey — whose résumés include performing with major opera companies and orchestras around the country.
“Not many choirs, certainly community choirs, get to have Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor on their repertoire list,” Muhn said. “And to have performed it with such great musicians of this caliber is even rarer.”
Sunday’s concert will be a first for Muhn. She’s conducted movements from Mozart’s Mass but never the entire piece, she said.
“I am very excited to get to perform the entire work with such great musicians,” she said. “When I studied various choral masterworks, I fell in love with this work ... . From the baroque-style writing to the influence of the Italian opera as shown in his arias, it shows his brilliance and flexibility as a composer.”
