Beethoven's Mass in C
50th Anniversary Concert
Groton-Dunstable Performing Arts Center
344 Main St., Groton, MA
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Time - 3:00pm
The Nashoba Valley Chorale is 50 - hallelujah!
The Nashoba Valley Chorale's 50th Anniversary Concert references our past with two radiantly beautiful works we have sung over the years: the Beethoven Mass in C and Randall Thompson's Alleluia. Over the years we have sung many masterpieces by J.S. Bach, and we continue that difficult and absorbing tradition with Motet No. 2, "Der Geist hilft unser Schwacheit auf", a double chorus work that is exciting and profound; eight minutes of non-stop singing requiring concentration, a commitment to the rhythmic pulse, and vocal freedom.
The Anniversary Concert music is full of prayers and hallelujahs, with texts from the psalms (Vivaldi's Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina), Mass settings (including Hyo-Won Woo's rhythmic and exciting Cum Sancto Spiritu), and various liturgical texts. And of course, poetry: we will sing Britten's wonderfully rambunctious and beautiful Rejoice in the Lamb. This is a setting of part of Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno, a vast hymn of praise, written during the poet's four years in an asylum. "Hallelujah from the heart of God, And from the hand of the artist inimitable."
