Johns Hopkins University issued the following announcement on Oct. 25.
Twelve days before a mammoth, collaborative performance of Leonard Bernstein's Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers at Baltimore's New Psalmist Baptist Church, a large contingent of the performing vocalists gathers in the Peabody Institute's Friedberg Hall for rehearsal.
A mix of Peabody chorus singers and members of the Morgan State University Choir fills the orchestra seats, organized by vocal range from soprano to bass, right to left. The Peabody Children's Chorus sits in front of them. Onstage, vocalists playing the production's Street Singers fill three rows of chairs beside the singers playing the main character of the Celebrant and his two child acolytes. A student sits at the piano, stage right, and all around bustles a coordinated flank of ensemble directors and managers.
Standing at a podium center stage, Maestra Marin Alsop conducts the performance, cueing sections, marking time, and listening to what parts need those subtle tweaks that transform a work from page to stage.
All told, about 540 singers, musicians, and dancers are involved in this production of Mass, Bernstein's adaptation of the Catholic service that explores the crises of faith that come with living in a fractured modern world. The massive work of musical theater was composed for the 1971 opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Johns Hopkins University
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