The Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s Spring Concert features Leonard Bernstein’s iconic “Mass” and J.S. Bach’s motet “Jesu Meine Freude,” 4 p.m. March 26, First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem, 2344 Center St., Bethlehem.

The Bach Choir will be joined by soloists Barbara Kilduff, soprano; Isaiah Bell, tenor; members of the Bach Festival Orchestra, and the Bel Canto Children’s Chorus of the Bach Choir.

Bach Choir Artistic Director and Conductor Greg Funfgeld gives a pre-concert talk at 3 p.m. March 26 in First Presbyterian’s Fellowship Hall.

It’s The Bach Choir’s first performance of Bernstein’s “Mass” in the concert selections version.

It’s also the first major concert with the Bel Canto Children’s Chorus of The Bach Choir since the affiliation was begun about one year ago.

Bel Canto, prepared by director Joy Hirokawa, has a substantial role in the “Mass” and also participates in “Jesu Meine Freude.”

Kilduff is making her debut with The Bach Choir.

The concert opens with Bach’s colossal motet “Jesu Meine Freude,” a kaleidoscope of colors, textures, and expressions ending with the exquisite chorale “You remain at my side, even in sorrow, Jesus, my joy.”

Barry Creasy, Chairman of the Collegium Musicum of London, calls “Jesu Meine Freude” “the longest and most musically complex and earliest” of the six motets Bach composed music for St. Thomas’ Church Leipzig from 1723 - 27.

Bernstein’s “Mass” was written for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., in 1971. Conductors presenting the work in the past decade have continued to find it a challenging, inspiring, and deeply relevant work.

Funfgeld has chosen to present the concert version of the work edited by Dr. Doreen Rao, which maintains the integrity of the “Mass” form and the dramatic tension between faith and doubt as well as the spirit of diversity, inclusion and peace that was so much a part of Bernstein’s mission as a conductor, composer and humanitarian.

When Rau embarked on editing the “Mass” in celebration of Bernstein’s 90th birthday she said, “This concert edition of ‘Mass’ celebrates Leonard Bernstein’s dedication to the music education of young people and his passion for peace, goals central to arts and education in the world today.”

Marin Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, wrote in 2008, “Bernstein used the traditional Mass as a framework on which to hang all of his beliefs and questions. The music embraces Broadway and opera, rock ballads and blues, with a narrative that blends Hebrew and Latin texts.”

Orchestration includes piano, organ, flutes, guitars and a large percussion section.

Stated The Daily Telegraph of London, “The work’s orchestral meditations are as lovely as anything in [Bernstein’s] ‘classical’ output. ... And is there a more beautiful 20th-century chorale than ‘Almighty Father,’ with which Mass ends? I can’t think of one.”

Tickets: bach.org, 610-866-4382, ext. 110 or 115