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Handel's Messiah has won such an honored place in our culture and in our minds and hearts over the past two and a half centuries that many consider it the world's greatest choral work. Annual performances of it have been given without break since 1750, with forces ranging from a handful of singers standing around a piano, to massed choruses with as many as 5000 people.

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The Mastersingers presented two American choral masterworks: "Lux Aeterna" by Morten Lauridsen, and "Chichester Psalms" by Leonard Bernstein. Morten Lauridsen is in the forefront of American choral composers today. Since its premiere in 1997, "Lux Aeterna" has been perennially one of the most often performed choral works around the world. The title translates as "Eternal Light," and it is the image of light, of divine spirit, that Lauridsen weaves throughout the text of the five-movement work. "Chichester Psalms," Bernstein's most beloved choral work, was composed in 1965 for an annual music festival held in Chichester Cathedral in England. Bernstein's commissioners may have expected a more erudite, academically fashionable style of music when they asked him to write it, but try as he might, the composer could not avoid being himself. The visceral, infectious rhythms and heart-catching melodies he created in this three-movement setting of psalm texts assures it of being a joy to sing and to hear. Along with Lauridsen's "Lux Aeterna," the "Chichester Psalms" has won a place as one of the most popular and often-performed choral works from the twentieth century.

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The Mastersingers took a festive romp through music that revels in the simple joys of being alive . . . from Walt Whitman's "My Spirit Is Uncaged" to Vaughan Williams' "Greensleeves," with stops along the way for a hilarious menagerie of farcical verse from Ogden Nash: "Animal Crackers," by Eric Whitacre. Featured guest Lindy Gravelle, Central Oregon's own renowned singer/songwriter, performed some of her own works and joined the Mastersingers in arrangements created especially for these performances, including a setting of her beautiful "No Place Under the Sun Like Oregon."

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For its 2010 fall concerts, the 45-member Central Oregon Mastersingers presented a program of sacred choral works, featuring the 40-minute "Dixit Dominus" for chorus and orchestra by George Frederick Handel, written when the composer was just 22 years old. Full of youthful exuberance and precocious skill, it still has the power to overwhelm - an explosion of creative energy by a young composer brimming with confidence and intent on making his mark on the musical world. Other works included "And There Was a Great Calm," a new cantata by the young American composer Tarik O'Regan that covers the emotional spectrum from deepest meditative elegy to ecstatic rhythmic exuberance, and pieces by Lauridsen, Rachmaninoff, and Messiaen. The haunting "Miserere" by the early Baroque composer Gregorio Allegri was heard, a piece deemed so special that for centuries it was reserved for the exclusive use by the papal choir in Rome, excommunication being the penalty for surreptitiously copying it. Members of the Central Oregon Symphony took part in the performances of this music, most of which had never before been heard in Central Oregon.

The Mastersingers joined forces with the Cascade Chorale and the Central Oregon Symphony in presenting this choral/orchestral masterwork. Michael Gesme conducted the performances to a nearly full house for all three concerts. James Knox and Melissa Bagwell appeared as soloists.

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The Mastersingers joined forces with the Bells of Sunriver, Central Oregon's great handbell choir, to present "Ring Noel," a traditional family Christmas concert for all ages. Delightful renditions of perennial Christmas favorites were heard alongside fresh new music for the season. The Bells of Sunriver presented clever takes on familiar carols with "Carolers' Hoedown" and "We Wish You a Ragtime Christmas." Included in the Mastersingers' selections were carols by John Rutter and a thrilling rendition of the African-American spiritual, "Go Tell it on the Mountain."

The Mastersingers opened their fifth season with a benefit concert in support of Bend Area Habitat for Humanity. This concert was a celebration of home and hearth, presenting new arrangements of classic songs by Paul Simon, Carole King, and Neil Young, along with other vintage Americana - old hymns, spirituals, and works by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. A featured work was the ravishing "Agnus Dei" by Samuel Barber, the choral setting of his famous "Adagio for Strings."

Proceeds from this concert were donated to the Bend Area Habitat for Humanity, building new homes for Central Oregon families in need.

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From the Italian Renaissance polyphony of Gabrieli and Monteverdi, to the delightful "Liebeslieder Waltzes" - the "Love Songs" - of Brahms; from the Russian liturgical music of Rachmaninoff, to African-American spirituals: the Mastersingers' spring concerts were a multi-textured, multi-colored tapestry of great choral music from the 16th to the 21st centuries. Gems from the past were heard alongside new works that are quickly becoming classics, including Eric Whitacre's ecstatic masterpiece, "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine." A nine-piece brass choir joined the singers on several numbers.

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The Central Oregon Mastersingers opened their fourth season with a concert entitled "Going Home." Traditional American music and songs from around the world were presented that touched on the ageless themes of searching and discovering, departing and arriving, beginning and ending. Our tumultuous times, both at home and abroad, were the inspiration for many of the musical choices, including historic presidential campaign songs, and folk songs from Latin America, Europe, and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. A composition by Clyde Thompson was featured which set a Zimbabwean poem describing that country's tenuous efforts at striving for democracy. Old American hymns and spirituals were heard, including the poignant setting of the Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony, "Goin' Home." The Summit High School Chorale and Crook County High School Choir joined the Mastersingers in a grand finale.

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The Central Oregon Mastersingers joined the Cascade Chorale and College Choir in performances of one of the most profound works in the choral repertoire: Mozart's Requiem. This work lends itself to performance by a large chorus, to match the depth and power of the music. For these concerts, 140 voices, accompanied by orchestra, were led by James Knox, director of the Cascade Chorale.

The Mastersingers, directed by Clyde Thompson, opened the concert with a set of music by composers who were Mozart's contemporaries and colleagues: Joseph Eybler (the first composer who tried his hand at finishing the Requiem after Mozart's death), Franz Sussmayr (the person who actually completed it), Antonio Salieri (who achieved late fame in the movie "Amadeus"), and the other great classicist of the time, Franz Joseph Haydn.

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The Mastersingers were invited to take part in a collaboration with the Cannon Beach Chorus for performances of Clyde Thompson's cantata "We Have Spoken - Voices from Native America." The performances took place at the Coaster Theatre in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

The Bend contingent of singers and musicians involved with the project numbered twenty one people. Clyde Thompson directed the performances. The Mastersingers' accompanist, Jean Shrader, was joined by Kathy Gault in providing the two-piano accompaniment. Steve Osterkamp and Katrina Hays appeared as soloists.

The texts for the hour-long cantata are taken entirely from Native American literature, and paint a broad picture of the history of the American Indians from before the time of Columbus to the end of the nineteenth century. The cantata was commissioned by the New Classic Singers, a professional choir based in Chicago, Illinois. The New Classic Singers premiered the work in 2002. The Cascade Chorale gave the Northwest premiere of the cantata in the spring of 2003, and reprised it twice - in the fall of 2003, and again in the fall of 2004. Nine of the twenty movements have been published separately, and have received performances throughout the country, including a performance at the new National Museum of the Native American, in Washington D.C. The performances in Cannon Beach were the first since 2004 to present the cantata in its entirety.