Henry S. Waters, D.M.A., will direct the annual Masterworks concert, featuring mass choir, orchestra and soloists, on Sunday, April 30, at 4 p.m. (note time change from some previously printed sources) in Mem Hall.

The concert will comprise the Mozart Missa in C, K. 317 “Coronation” and Beethoven Fantasie for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, op. 80 “Choral Fantasy.”

This year’s concert features an orchestra, made up of student instrumentalists, faculty, alumni and friends, and a mass choir comprising all Bethel vocal groups as well as current faculty and staff, alumni and community members.

Soloists are sopranos Soyoun Chun, D.M.A., and Ellen Sudershan, alto Kathleen Deffley, tenors Justin Petersen and Ron Garber, and bass Chris Kliewer.

In addition, Matteo Generani is the guest pianist for the “Choral Fantasy.” Christina Liu, D.M.A., and Amanda Entz are serving as rehearsal pianists.

Chun is the instructor of vocal music at Bethel and has appeared numerous times as a soprano soloist for Masterworks concerts since she began teaching at the college in 2006.

Sudershan is a recent master’s graduate of Wichita State University who has sung with Opera Kansas and the WSU Opera Theater.

Deffley is an instructor of music at Butler Community College in El Dorado and private voice teacher who has sung numerous roles in operas and oratorios on the East Coast and locally.

Petersen holds positions at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, Wichita, and WSU and has sung numerous roles in opera and musical theater locally and in Kansas City.

Garber retired from 40 years as a music educator in 2012 and is a well-known Newton musician who directed the Kansas Mennonite Men’s Chorus for nine years and the Newton Chorale for 10 years.

Kliewer, director of operations and risk management with GLMV Architecture in Wichita, is a well-known soloist with choral groups and in churches in the south-central Kansas region, including for the 2022 Masterworks performance of the Mozart Requiem.

Italian pianist Generani is currently in a doctoral program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He has won several national and international solo piano competitions and plays with two chamber duos.

Waters is completing his first year as director of choral music at Bethel College.

In this role, he leads the Bethel College Concert Choir and Bethel College Chapel Choir (soprano and alto voices) and a small, select ensemble called the Bethel College Chamber Singers, which he revived at Bethel from a number of years past.

He also advises the two small student-led a cappella ensembles, Open Road and Woven, and teaches classes as associate professor of music.

In addition, he serves as director of music at Plymouth Congregational Church in Wichita.

As part of his doctoral work at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Waters was preparing to direct a performance of the “Coronation Mass” when the pandemic put a temporary end to such events.

He says he has been very much looking forward to finally being able to conduct the piece with choir and orchestra.

Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Known for academic excellence, Bethel ranks at #14 in the Washington Monthly list of “Best Bachelor’s Colleges,” and #24 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of “Best Regional Colleges Midwest,” both for 2022-23. Bethel is the only Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu