Yale Schola Cantorum Concludes Season with Bach’s Mass in B Minor

Led by conductor Simon Carrington, Yale Schola Cantorum, the chamber choir of the Institute of Sacred Music, will give two performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, on April 24 and 25.

Both performances, the choral group’s final concerts of the season, will take place at 8 p.m. in St. Mary’s Church, 5 Hillhouse Ave.

Markus Rathey, associate professor of music history at Yale, will present a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. before each performance in Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, 1 Prospect St., Room 114.

Following the New Haven performances, the ensemble will perform the Mass on tour in Korea and China.

The score calls for eight soloists (all the members of the Yale Voxtet directed by James Taylor), double chorus (the 24 voices of Yale Schola Cantorum) and a chamber orchestra of strings, winds and trumpets (the Yale Collegium Players directed by Robert Mealy).

“There is no evidence that Bach ever performed the entire Massin his lifetime,” note the concert’s organizers. “When he completed the work, his aim was to collect and conserve some of his most remarkable compositions, and he integrated them into a Mass that would reflect his finest accomplishments as a vocal composer.”

Carrington, who founded the Yale Schola Cantorum in 2003, will retire from Yale at the end of the current season. Japanese Bach specialist Masaaki Suzuki has been appointed to a two-year term at Yale as visiting professor of choral conducting and conductor of the Yale Schola Cantorum.

The concerts are free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets are available at the School of Music box office at 203-432-4158 or online at http://music.yale.edu/concerts/box. They will also be available at the pre-concert talk or at the door.