LINDSBORG — Each year, students from Bethany College are selected to perform solo pieces from Handel’s Messiah during the Bethany Oratorio Society’s dress rehearsal.

Handel’s masterwork is the highlight of the Messiah Festival of the Arts, an annual festival since 1881 at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan.

For the dress rehearsal, Bethany College students are allowed to audition for spots performing with the orchestra in place of the professional singers who perform on Easter Sunday. This year 17 students were selected for this honor, including the following.

Almena
Carson Montgomery

Cheney
Austin Hampton
Matthew Slusser

Leavenworth
Mackinze Smith

Lindsborg
Elise Nelson
Kalyn Powers
Abigail Rishel-Barnett

Manhattan
Gavin Larios

Marquette
Stephen Klaassen

Minneapolis
Michael Baker
Lauren Gragg

Salina
Nicholas Bartholomew
Katelynn Zuercher

WaKeeney
Isaiah Fabrizius

Brighton, Colorado
Maya Herrera

Las Vegas, Nevada
Carl Lindstrom III

Moscow, Russia
Galina Brauer

The dress rehearsal will be performed at 3 p.m. in Presser Hall Auditorium on Sunday. Tickets are $5 at the door.

The 2019 Messiah Festival of the Arts will feature a number of concerts, recitals, art exhibits, and theatrical productions from April 11 to April 21. Tickets and a full list of events may be found at www.messiahfestival.org or by contacting Taylor Deutscher, Messiah Festival Coordinator at [email protected] or by calling 785-227-3380 ext. 8237.

Every year since 1881, the Bethany Oratorio Society has performed Handel’s masterpiece Messiah. The work is perhaps the most popularly performed choral/orchestral masterpiece in history but is often only heard in an abridged version during the Christmas season. The Bethany Oratorio Society performs the work each Holy Week in its full version with professional soloists, a semi-professional orchestra, and a 250-300 member chorus of well-experience volunteers, some of whom have sung 50 years or more.