Thomas Wesley Douglas, of the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh, is trying to provide something other than the "same old, same old."
"There are a lot of other things competing for our attention," says the ensemble's artistic director. "So, we have to give people a reason for coming to listen to a work that's 200 years old."
The choir will open its season this weekend by performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Requiem" at Trinity Cathedral, Downtown.
But while that work is beloved for its choral beauty, Douglas is trying to add elements to it that will lift it from simply being a favorite of the CD collection.
"We can do something musically, but we have to make it better," he says. "We have to do something that will help the concert experience."
The work will be done without intermission to "not interrupt the flow," and it also will also use other pieces of music and elements to provide different looks at lament.
He declined to outline those elements too much because he didn't want potential listeners to be fearful of the changes.
Polly McQueen, a mezzo who has been singing with the choir for four seasons, says Douglas has a way to combining disparate elements successfully.
"You hear what he is doing and you say, 'What?'" the Point Breeze singer says. "But, then you hear it performed, and it works."
She says she is enthusiastic about Douglas's work with the choir because "it makes people listen in a different way."
For instance, last year, he presented George Frederick Handel's "Messiah" in the round. In it, a soloist once climbed a ladder to represent sound from the heavens. He also did a concert in a large entranceway at Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland and one at an arts center in the Strip District.
In one show, he will be combining Johann Sebastian Bach's "Magnificat" with a P.D.Q. Bach piece by parodist Peter Schickele. He also will present the Pittsburgh premiere of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass."
"To me, anymore, you have to do things differently," says McQueen, who sang with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh from 1975-'92. "And, I think this will help get people come to choral concert."
But Douglas admits a demand to show respect for works such as the "Requiem." So he is bringing in a soprano soloist, Maya Wirz, of Switzerland, for the piece.
He met her 10 years ago while conducting the "The Phantom of the Opera" in Berne, Switzerland, and she obviously made an impression.
"We would talk about other music then," Wirz says from her home in Switzerland. "Then, when he was on vacation here in January, he called and asked me to come to the United States."
She says she has sung the "Requiem" professionally once before and is eager to see the way Douglas is conducting the work.
Douglas believes his outook on music is simply part of an overall trend with performances.
"We have to work with that," he says, "but we don't want to get away from fine performances."
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