“Mozart and Constanze: Love Letters”

On April 26^th, St. Catherine of Siena Music Director, Mark Kaczmarczyk, will conduct Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor in what will be the first of many planned events throughout the year to celebrate the church’s 100^th anniversary in the Riverside community. In fact, on April 28^th, St. Catherine’s will celebrate a special commemorative mass that honors the original founding and installation of this Roman Catholic Church on May 8, 1913.

The Great Mass in C minor was written to commemorate Mozart’s marriage to Constanze Weber. As with his other monumental work, the Requiem, Mozart left the Mass in C minor incomplete. It is certainly his most ambitious
and complex sacred work – almost one hour in length and immense in conception. Historians speculate that the composition may have been prompted by Mozart’s
guilt over a falling out with his father, his marriage (against his father’s wishes) to Constanze, or as a mass of thanksgiving for Constanze’s recovery from illness. Perhaps Mozart planned to compose a grand full-scale mass both as
a wedding present to Constanze and in an effort to appease his father. Whatever the impetus for the composition of the Mass in C minor, it is regarded today as
one of the three greatest settings of the Mass Ordinary (the other two being Bach's Mass in B Minor and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis). In this performance, the
"Mozart and Constanze: Love Letters" program weds personal letters from Mozart to members of his family and his fiancée Constanze Weber, who sang the soprano solos at the premiere. The letters will be interspersed during the
actual movements of the mass, and feature Metropolitan Opera soprano Jennifer Aylmer and Broadway Veteran Glenn Seven Allen. Accompanying them will be the
St. Catherine of Siena Festival Choir and Greenwich Symphony Orchestra.

Ticket prices for the 8:00 PM April 26^th performance
of Mozart’s Mass in C minor are general open seating at $25 and student open seating at $10. Call 203-637-3661 to reserve and charge your ticket, or visit us at the Parish offices located at 4 Riverside Avenue, Riverside, CT at the
corner of Riverside and West Putnam Avenues (across the street from Balducci’s Market). 

And among the 2013 celebration offerings at St. Catherine’s will be a very special performance by multi-Grammy award-winning a cappella choral group, Chanticleer, on October 26th at 8PM. This 12-man San Francisco singing group has performed around the world, but may best be remembered for their annual NYC yuletide recitals set beneath the Baroque Christmas Tree inside
the Medieval Sculpture Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s hard to imagine a more enjoyable way to close this yearlong centennial salute to St. Catherine’s than to hear the exquisite singing from a choral group dubbed “…an
orchestra of voices.” The concert is expected to sell out so advance reservations are strongly advised by calling 203-637-3661.