FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2020
CONTACT: Karen Schuessler
Artistic Director, Karen Schuessler Singers
(519) 473-1668
kasch500@rogers.com
www.kssingers.com
Karen Schuessler Singers presents Bach’s riveting St. John Passion
London, ON – The KAREN SCHUESSLER SINGERS perform the St. John Passion by Bach on
Saturday, April 4, 2020, at Wesley-Knox United Church, 91 Askin Street, at 8:00 p.m.
The St. John Passion is the highly dramatic and explosive retelling of the last days of Jesus according to the gospel of St. John, by the incomparable Johann Sebastian Bach. You might say it is Bach’s Cecil B. DeMille spectacular. Featuring four outstanding soloists, the 45-member choir, all accompanied by London Symphonia and conducted by Karen Schuessler. It promises to be a major event in London’s Concert season.
“This is Bach at his most dramatically brilliant. He wanted to write a passion to show his bosses at his new job in Leipzig what he could do, and did he ever deliver! He gave them a masterpiece that would come to be ranked with the most sublime creations of the Baroque period. He tells the tale with a dramatic urgency that is powerful and gripping. This concert will be the crown of our season,” says KSS Artistic Director Karen Schuessler.
Outstanding soloists for this concert will be Chelsea Van Pelt, soprano, Sarah Hicks, mezzo soprano, Christopher Mayell, tenor and Evangelist, and David Diston, baritone and Jesus. KSS bass Richard Zelinka will sing the part of Pilate.
London Symphonia is London’s premier orchestra—a professional symphony of top players that performs a vibrant season of music. Joining them for this performance will be concert organist, Ian Sadler.
Compared with the St Matthew Passion, the St John Passion has been described as more extravagant, with an expressive immediacy, at times more unbridled and less “polished”. In order to offer the maximum effect of the riveting emotional brilliance of this work, the performance will be in English. That’s the way Bach intended his listeners to hear it, in their native language. He wanted to engage his congregations in a visceral and personal experience of the scriptures.
“The St. John Passion is an exciting and timely work because of its brilliant fervour and intensity. Although the work was written almost 300 years ago, that same intensity seems to connect with the highly charged mood of our current time, and so makes it as relevant today as it was when Bach wrote it,” says Schuessler.
TICKETS are Adults $30, Seniors $27 in advance, or $33 / $30 at the door; Students $10; Children 6-12, Free when accompanied by an adult.
Tickets can be purchased at Tuckey Home Hardware, Attic Books, Long & McQuade (North) or online at www.kssingers.com
For more ticket information, phone 519-455-8895 or visit our website www.kssingers.com
Event Information:
What: Karen Schuessler Singers Concert: The St. John Passion by Bach
Where: Wesley-Knox United Church, 91 Askin Street, London, ON
When: Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 8:00 p.m.
Contact: 519-681-8129, www.kssingers.com
About The Karen Schuessler Singers:
The Karen Schuessler Singers is one of London’s premier concert choirs. Founded in 1993 by
director Karen Ann Schuessler to explore the vast world of choral music, the choir has become well known for quality performances and widely varied, accessible and innovative programming.
Each season the choir presents a 3-concert subscription series and several other performances designed to appeal to all ages and musical tastes. The choir performs choral repertoire that is not often performed by other choirs to complement traditional repertoire with music ranging from the classics to jazz to Broadway and from Renaissance to the 21st century.
The vision of the Karen Schuessler Singers is to create concerts that are not only entertaining and thought provoking, but also lift the spirit, lighten the heart and deepen the soul.
Says Karen Schuessler, “A live concert experience is an extraordinary thing. The audience is all together and receptive, and everyone in the room is connected through the music. That we all go on this inspiring journey together at that exact time can be transforming. Sing Joy!”