<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family: monospace; ">Kurt Sauer, director of the Medina Chorus, has programmed an ambitious work for the 80-year-old ensemble's spring concert: Franz Joseph Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, which Haydn titled Missa in Angustiis (Mass for Troubled Times). The concert will be on Saturday, May 2, at 7 p.m. at the Medina Presbyterian Church, 5020 Burgundy Bay Blvd. in Medina. Rehearsals, which will be at the same location, start on Monday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m. and will be held every Monday until the concert. </span><br style="font-family: monospace; "><br style="font-family: monospace; "><span style="font-family: monospace; ">No auditions are required. Cost of the music is $50 per person, $75 for a couple and $90 for a family. We ask that you show up a half-hour early for the first rehearsal to sign up and receive your music. If you have any questions, contact Chorus President Tom Burnett at 330-461-3604, or Kurt Sauer at 330-225-0049. Visit the chorus website </span><a href="http://www.medinachorus.com/" style="font-family: monospace; ">www.medinachorus.com</a><span style="font-family: monospace; "> for more information.</span><br style="font-family: monospace; "><br style="font-family: monospace; "><span style="font-family: monospace; ">The mass, which Haydn's biographer has called his "greatest single composition," was written during a time when his native Austria was under threat of invasion by Napoleon. It acquired its nickname when Admiral Horatio Nelson, who had dealt Napoleon a stunning defeat just weeks before the piece's 1798 premiere, visited Vienna in 1800 and -- legend has it -- attended a performance of the piece.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: monospace; "><br></span></div></body></html>