Choral

Pretty much the pick of this week's concerts is the San Francisco Choral Society's full-scale production of Mendelssohn's oratorio, Elijah.

Most summer concerts are the equivalent of beach reading – the musical versions of vampire romances and spy thrillers. But for those who prefer to heft Gravity's Rainbow to the seaside, there is also a musical equivalent. Christopher Kula, the chief of Pacific Collegium is definitely one of the heavy lifting crowd and his programs never lack for ambition.

The little chorus with the highly unusual programming is back this weekend. If you're interested in great music that doesn't get performed that often, you should really be following Chora Nova.

This week, Ragnar Bohlin and the S.F. Symphony Chorus met their ultimate challenge, performing Bach's B minor Mass, a towering landmark of all music. The result is a delightful surprise; an intimate, gentle, lyrical performance of this majestic expression of yearning for peace and the good of all humanity.

Any singer who has performed Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis can attest that this is one piece not for the faint of heart. It therefore takes some gumption to tackle this work, yet this is precisely the challenge adopted by the 100-voice Cantare Chorale, led by David Morales.

It would have been hard to tell, observing the small, graying audience in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Saturday, that videos of the early-music band Voices of Music had received, as of this writing, 3,558,070 hits on YouTube. I suspect a good deal of those came from Web queries for the famous Pachelbel Canon, of which VOM has posted an excellent recording.

Kui Dong is a composer who is just now getting the wider notice she deserves. The upcoming Volti concert includes her Painted Lights alongside works by David Lang, Tamar Diesendruck, and Ted Hearne.

Are the American Bach Soloists going to watch the nuptials of Kate and William? The group seems like it's preparing for it this weekend, when they'll perform some of the largest and most sumptuous choral works of the late Baroque in “Music for the Royal Women of Britannia.”

Terrance Kelly and his Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir showcase their infectious spirit at the Oakland East Bay Symphony's holiday celebration, “Let Us Break Bread Together.”

Chora Nova performs one of Rossini’s greatest works, the Petite Messe solennelle — neither little, solemn, nor even really a Mass — on May 29, under the direction of Paul Flight, providing an opportunity to hear this Mass in something close to its original version.