Bethel student musicians are doing a short fall tour in central Kansas, with stops in Hutchinson, Victoria, Manhattan and Topeka.
Russell Adrian, director of choral activities, and Chris Miertschin, director of bands, will take the Bethel College Concert Choir and the Bethel College Wind Ensemble on the tour starting Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. at First Mennonite Church in Hutchinson (52 Rambler Rd., Hutchinson).
Titled “Light,” the program is a collaboration with the Hutchinson Community College Choir and will feature an original composition by Judson Lee, director of choral activities at HCC.
The rest of the tour is called “The Heavens are Telling.” Its next stop is 1 p.m. on Nov. 22 at the Basilica of St. Fidelis, the “Cathedral on the Plains” (900 Cathedral Ave., Victoria), one of the “8 Wonders of Kansas.”
At 7 p.m. that evening, there will be a performance at Manhattan Mennonite Church (1000 Fremont St., Manhattan).
Finally, the groups will perform in the morning worship service Nov. 23 at 10:30 a.m. at Southern Hills Mennonite Church in Topeka (511 SE 37th St., Topeka).
All performances are free and open to the public.
The Wind Ensemble will play two pieces by Percy Grainger and one by Pavel Tschesnokoff. The Concert Choir program includes works by Claudio Monteverdi, Felix Mendelssohn, Joseph Haydn, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Michael McClynn, Samuel Koch, Miriam Overholt and others, with styles ranging from sacred classical to Celtic to spirituals.
The title of the tour comes from a well-known choral piece in Haydn’s oratorio The Creation.
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel is ranked #25 in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Regional College Midwest for 2026. Bethel was the only Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Community Healing and Transformation (TCHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu
