Musikanten Montana Concerts for All Souls

Musikanten Montana begins its 16th season of performances in Helena with the annual All Souls concerts, Friday, November 1 and Saturday, November 2.  This year’s memorial concerts, with candles lighted for those church members, family and friends who have died in the past year, will feature two beloved requiems, composed three and a half centuries apart.  Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien from 1636 is sometimes called the first German Requiem, a reference to the more often performed Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem. Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna premiered in Los Angeles in 1997.  Each of these compositions is a very personal adaptation of the traditional Latin Mass for the dead.

To open the concert, Artistic Director Kerry Krebill will conduct the choir in Estonian minimalist Arvo Pärt’s The Beatitudes. Cathedral Organist Jason Phillips will join the choir in all three works. Soloists for the 6-part Musikalische Exequien are soprano Martha Lowe, mezzo soprano Gretchen Mundinger, contralto Anne Kania, tenor Michael Harrison, baritone Art Bumgardner and bass Norman Smith.

Before the Lauridsen Lux Aeterna, the names of those for whom the candles are lighted will be read, and a period of silence for prayer and meditation will be observed.  The concert is performed without intermission, and the congregation is requested to depart in silence, remembering those who have gone before us.

The concerts are both at 7:30 pm, Friday at the Cathedral of St. Helena, and Saturday at St. John’s Lutheran Church (across from Helena Middle School).  A suggested donation of $15 is asked at the door. To have a candle lighted and name listed in the memorial program, please text Linda at 406-465-4773 by October 28. For whom to contact for lighting a candle.