The Moore County Choral Society will hold its annual classic concert on Sunday, March 9 at 4 p.m.

The featured works will be Schubert’s “Mass in G” and Morten Lauridsen’s “Lux Aeterna,” two fantastic productions by the 120–member chorus. The concert will be held in the Pinecrest High School auditorium, complete with soloists and orchestra.

The “Lux Aeterna” is a composition about light. If light could be set to music, Lauridsen has given us this deeply felt impression and expression in his choral monument of Lux Aeterna. As quoted in the February Choral Journal, “Not only does the composer’s harmonic color shimmer and glisten in this extended choral/orchestral work, but also the depth of the composition provides a glimpse at a deeper inner light.”

“‘Lux Aeterna’ (Eternal Light) is an intimate work of quiet serenity centered around a universal symbol of hope, reassurance, goodness, and illumination at all levels. The seamlessness of this music comes into play again as light leads to new light, as harmony merges into harmony, and as tempo modulates into new tempo.”

Since its premiere in 1997 in Los Angeles, “Lux Aeterna” has had 200 performances throughout the world, but has never been performed in our area.

Lauridsen has received the respect and esteem of today’s serious choral conductors and audiences. He has earned a permanent place in the standard choral repertoire, and is one of America’s most performed and recorded composers.

“Lux Aeterna” is an extended choral work for chorus and chamber orchestra. The five–movement work, performed without pause, is built upon texts drawn from sacred Latin sources, each containing references to light. The instrumentation of the work calls for seven wind instruments and strings.

Morten Lauridsen was born in 1943, and went on to study at Whitman College and the University of Southern California, where he also received his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition. He chaired the Department of Composition of USC’s Thornton School of Music, and was founder of the Scoring for Motion Pictures and TV Advanced Studies Program at the school.

Lauridsen’s passion second to music is poetry. It has been a natural development for him as a composer to wed these two passions and to set texts to music.

While we are all probably more familiar with Schubert’s works, his songs are among romantic masterpieces, and that his instrumental works reflect a classical heritage as well as 19th century romanticism.

Franz was born on Jan. 31, 1797, in Vienna. The son of a parish schoolmaster, he became a choirboy in the Imperial Chapel in 1808, and studied at a school for court singers. He also played the violin.

His first songs greatly impressed his teachers. When his voice changed in 1813, he began teaching in his father’s school, and in the following year, he wrote his first opera, Des Teufels Lustschloss; his first mass, in F major; and 17 songs.

In 1815, Schubert completed his second and third symphonies; and wrote two masses — in G and B–flat major; other sacred works; chamber music; and 146 songs. He also worked on five operas that year. Franz was 18 years old!

He went on to write more symphonies, sacred music, opera, and more than 100 songs. Most of his works were written before he was 20, and included many well–known pieces. At age 23 he composed “The Magic Harp,” “Twenty–third Psalm” and an unfinished oratorio, Lazarus. At 25 he wrote the “Symphony in B Minor,” known as the “Unfinished Symphony” and the “Mass in A–flat.” He wrote constantly, producing more songs, symphonies, masses, a string quintet in C major, piano sonatas, and his last and greatest collection of songs, “Schwanengesang” (Swan Song), was written in 1828. Schubert died in November of 1828, at the age of 31, of typhoid fever.

The choir will be under the direction of Anne Dorsey.

Tickets are available at the Village Deli in Pinehurst, the Campbell House, and at the door the afternoon of the concert, from 3 p.m. Tickets are $15, and children’s tickets are $7.50.