A masterpiece by Mozart meets the music of Freddie Mercury in a concert this month by the Southern Delaware Chorale.
Called “Kings and Queen,” the concert pairs Mozart’s Coronation Mass with classic Mercury songs like “Under Pressure” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” interspersed throughout. While that may seem like an odd pairing at first, the Chorale’s co-director Joseph Shortall, who is conducting this concert, says the two men had some things in common.
“What we're doing is we're saying, ‘listen, Mozart and Freddie Mercury really pushed the extremes of music during their lifetimes,’” he explains. “We're looking at their similarities and how they were innovators for music.”
Among those similarities was both composers’ mastery of writing for voices.
“Both of them are really trying to push the vocal boundaries as to what might be possible,” Shortall explains. “Mozart really will have big leaping lines, and then Freddie Mercury is also doing something very similar as well.He's pretty iconic for having this massively huge range.”
Shortall notes the concert presents a challenge for the singers, especially when it comes to going from classical to rock and roll. He compares it to having to flip a mental switch.
“It's difficult to navigate, but I think it's really cool and it's going to be quite engaging to see the differences between the two styles throughout,” he says.
The Southern Delaware Chorale presents “Kings and Queen” on April 26 at Epworth United Methodist Church in Rehoboth Beach.
More information on the performance is at the Southern Delaware Chorale website.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
