Centenary Choir Presents Mozart's Requiem Sunday, March 29

SHREVEPORT, La—The Centenary Choir performs Requiem, one of the greatest works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sunday, March 29 beginning at 3 p.m. with orchestra at the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans in Shreveport. The concert is free and open to the public.

choir group

This will be the first of two performances of the Requiem for the Choir — the second will take place later this summer at the Sydney Opera House during the Choir's international tour.

Composed in 1791, the Requiem was Mozart's last composition, and is one of his most popular and most respected works. Few works attain the level of mystique surrounding the Requiem Mass. Written in the year of his death, Mozart died before the work was finished, and the task eventually fell to his pupil, Franz Süssmayr, to complete the piece. Yet, despite the unorthodox compositional circumstances, Mozart's brilliance exudes in what would become the first of a great lineage of Requiem masterworks for chorus and orchestra. Due to the unusual nature and timing of his early death at age 35, many have suggested that he was writing his own Requiem, further adding to the Mozart mythos.

Requiem

Since 1941 the Centenary College Choir has performed throughout the world: singing for front-line troops in Korea, many American and European heads of state, NATO and American armed forces worldwide, 10 international conventions of Lions International, three times for the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Council of Bishops, and two lengthy engagements at New York's "Radio City Music Hall."

Years of extensive travel have earned the choir the media title of "America's Singing Ambassadors." In addition to singing annually throughout the United States, the choir makes international tours every other year, which has included 31 countries on six continents. The most recent concert tour was to Ireland, Wales and England in 2007. This year the choir will perform in New Zealand and Australia.

The choir is a unique collegiate choral group, singing a varied repertory including both sacred and secular music, from Bach to Broadway, folk to contemporary, and opera to oratorio.

About Centenary College of Louisiana

Centenary College is a private, four-year arts and sciences college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Founded in 1825, it is the oldest chartered liberal arts college west of the Mississippi River and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Centenary is one of 16 colleges and universities constituting the Associated Colleges of the South and is regularly rated as one of the top colleges in the South. In 2008 Centenary College celebrates 100 years in Shreveport and Bossier City.