Mass appeal: Wichita Symphony Orchestra Chorus returns after 2-year break

The 100-plus members of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra Chorus will return to the stage at the Century II concert hall for the first time in more than two years, and director Ryan Beeken says they’re ready.

“There’s been a lot of excitement among the singers to be able to get back at it,” Beeken, who began directing the group last fall, said of the COVID-caused intermission. “They’ve missed that.”

The chorus will be featured on Schubert’s “Mass in G,” as well as soprano Carter Tholl, tenor Scott Wichael and bass-baritone Alan Held.

“It’s just a sweet piece with very beautiful lyric – lovely,” Beeken said of the Schubert.

Beeken, director of choral activities at Wichita State, said the chorus includes “lay people from every walk of life in town, from 20-somethings to 80-somethings to professional musicians and music educators who call Wichita home.”

The only noticeable change on stage is that the chorus will be wearing masks. Beeken said he made no specifications for what style of masks were used, “as long as it’s black.”

“If that’s what it takes to get back to our thing, we’ll gladly do it,” he said.

The symphony players are also masked, said conductor and musical director Daniel Hege. String players and percussionists are masked throughout, and woodwinds and brass remove their masks to play, then cover up when they’re on rest.

“They’ve been very good at that,” Hege said.

The symphony concert will include Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, which was originally scheduled for the WSO to perform in December 2020, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

“When we bring back the Fourth Symphony of Beethoven, that’s a nod to something I feel we missed out on,” Hege said. “We don’t feel like we have to all the concerts we didn’t get to do before (in concerts that were canceled), but we felt a few of them were worth doing.”

While Beethoven’s Third, Fifth, Seventh and Ninth symphonies get more performances worldwide, Hege said he’s a fan of the Fourth.

“It’s so direct and it’s so melodic, but it also has this inner intensity to it at times,” he said. “Beethoven’s Third Symphony and Fifth Symphony are just these blocks of granite coming at you. The Fourth Symphony is much sunnier. It has moments that’s a little bit of a shadow, almost darkness, but in general it has this very up feeling.”

The concert opens with what Hege calls his favorite piece by Mendelssohn, “The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave).”

“It’s really like a little tone poem,” he said. “It’s just poetry. It has all this wonder of the Hebrides, these islands off Scotland, and it almost feels like waves of music.”

Hege said a concert featuring Mendelssohn, Schubert and Beethoven seemed a bit heavy, so he asked Beeken for a selection by the chorus that would lighten things up for a choral encore.

He chose an arrangement of the Gospel song “Unclouded Day.”

“It’s a very campy arrangement, where we’re just celebrating that we get to be together and we get to do music,” Beeken said. “We’ve been forced to isolate, but humans are herd animals. We aren’t meant to be by ourselves.”

WICHITA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, FEATURING THE ORCHESTRA CHORUS

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 12

Where: Century II concert hall, 225 W. Douglas

Tickets: $25-$80, from wichitasymphony.org, the symphony box office or 267-7658