On Sunday, May 11, 2025 at 3:30 p.m. area audiences will have the opportunity to hear The Oratorio Society of Virginia with guest soloists and orchestra in a performance of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor. Renowned music critic Michael Steinberg claimed it is always a special event to hear a performance of Bach’s mass setting. Join us to experience this inspiring masterpiece in Old Cabell Hall at UVA, as Bach’s transforming music culminates The Society’s 57th concert season. Tickets for the performance are available for purchase through the UVA Arts Box Office online or by calling 434-924-3376.

A livestream option is also available for this performance. Livestream access may be purchased on The Oratorio Society’s website, oratoriosociety.org, or by calling 434-295-4385.

The performance features several guest artists including sopranos Molly Netter and Sheila Dietrich, and bass David Newman. The concert will be led by Oratorio Society Music Director and Director of Choral Music at UVA, Michael Slon.

“Bach’s extraordinary B minor Mass is considered by many of us professional musicians to be, as Carl Zelter once called it, probably the greatest musical work of art that the world has ever seen.’ Whether by virtue of its compositional brilliance, its stature as a piece intended to gather and sum up decades of the composer’s musical work, and/or the force of its spiritual ideas, the Bach is a one–of–a–kind mountain – with the view to match,” Slon says. “It will be our honor and pleasure to prepare and present it to local audiences in the first performance since the University Singers in 2010.”

The Oratorio Society’s 2024-2025 season is generously sponsored by our Presenting Sponsor, The Joseph & Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. Additional funding is also provided by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, Wegmans Grocery of Charlottesville, Bama Works Fund of the Dave Matthews Band, the Rosenbaum Family Foundation, and individual contributors in central Virginia and beyond.
 

For nearly 60 years, The Oratorio Society of Virginia has offered high quality, engaging concerts for the cultural enrichment, creative inspiration, and education of its home community of Charlottesville and the surrounding region. Throughout its five decades of performances, this all-volunteer chorus has amassed an impressive repertoire, which includes works by Bernstein, Bach, Hailstork, Mozart, Rutter, Thompson, and many more. Collaborative partners include The Charlottesville Opera, the UVA University Singers, The Charlottesville Symphony, and Charlottesville Ballet. 

This is an affiliated event.   For more information, please visit www.oratoriosociety.org