One of Joseph Haydn’s best-known works celebrates the Judeo-Christian account of creation through soloists, orchestra and a “choir of angels.”
Bethel’s annual Masterworks concert, under the direction of Dr. Russell Adrian, features all Bethel choral ensembles along with faculty, staff and community singers, and an orchestra that also comprises current students, faculty and community musicians.
This year’s performance is Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, May 3 at 4 p.m. in Memorial Hall. It is free and open to the public
“The Creation has a perfect balance between soloists, orchestra and chorus,” Adrian said. “I am excited to collaborate with soloists who are fantastic storytellers.”
The soprano, tenor and bass soloists have the roles of three angels – Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael – who tell, through recitatives and arias, the creation story from the book of Genesis, while the chorus functions as a multitude of angels to support and recap the narration of the main characters.
Soloists are Dr. Holly Swartzendruber, soprano, Dr. Zachary Devin, tenor, and Dr. Tim Bostwick, baritone. Kathleen Deffley has a small mezzo-soprano solo role.
Swartzendruber is associate professor of music at Bethel College, where she teaches and also directs the voice studio. She is a graduate of Goshen (Ind.) College, Ohio University (M.M. in vocal performance with vocal pedagogy emphasis) and the University of Kansas (D.M.A.). She especially enjoys performing and teaching German art song.
Among the operatic roles Swartzendruber has performed are Lucia from Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia; Despina from Mozart’s Così fan tutte; and Amahl’s Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors. She has sung the soprano solos for Handel’s Messiah, the Brahms Requiem, the Mozart Requiem and Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate.
Devin has a Ph.D. in vocal pedagogy from the University of Kansas, where he is assistant professor of voice and opera. He also holds an undergraduate degree from Millikin University and graduate degrees from Rice University and the Royal Academy of Music in London.
An active operatic performer, Devin made his professional debut in Budapest as Peter Quint in Britten’s Turn of the Screw. He has appeared with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Nashville Opera, Dayton Opera, Salt Marsh Opera, Winter Opera Saint Louis, Union Avenue Opera, Gulf Shore Opera, Mid-Ohio Civic Opera and the Southern Illinois Music Festival, among others. He has been a featured soloist for major works that include Messiah, Elijah, Britten’s Serenade for Horn and Tenor, Carmina Burana, The Seven Last Words of Christ, Stainer’s Crucifixion and Bach’s B Minor Mass.
Bostwick has his D.M.A. in performance and literature with a cognate in musicology degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In the last year, he has performed the baritone solos in Finzi’s In Terra Pax and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, as well as roles that include Charlie in The Day the Dogs Began to Talk; the title role in Falstaff; Pa in Proving Up; Roy in Staggerwing; and Sir Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore.
Earlier performances include the title role in Gianni Schicchi; Germont in La Traviata; the Father in Hänsel und Gretel; Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Escamillo in Carmen; Chucho in Lucrezia (Bolcom); Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana; Schaunard in La Bohème; Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro; and Top in Tender Land.
As for the instrumental aspect of The Creation, Adrian said, “Haydn was clever to write orchestral music that creates sound effects for the singers similar [to] a soundtrack to support the plot of a movie. This is punctuated at the end of each ‘day of creation’ by a fabulous and exciting choral movement, which is going to sound incredible with a Masterworks Chorus of 100 singers.
“There are a lot of great musicians in the Masterworks Chorus. I have been talking it up all school year to try and bring renewed excitement to this performance and I am very excited about the turnout.”
The 2026 Masterworks concert is dedicated to the memory of Elvera Voth (1923-2024). She had a long and distinguished career directing choral groups in Anchorage, Alaska, and Kansas City, which included founding the East Hill Singers, an arts in prison project that brought Robert Shaw to the Bethel campus in 1998.
Bethel adjunct music faculty member Renae Schmidt Peters will give a tribute to Voth during the Masterworks concert intermission, when there will also be a special presentation to Dr. Barbara Fast.
Fast will receive the Erwin C. and Verna Kaufman Goering Music Award, which honors a Bethel alumnus of outstanding character for distinguished achievement and recognition in music.
The Goerings were Bethel graduates (1940 and 1937, respectively) who were active in music as students. Both were singers and Verna Goering was a pianist and accompanist who earned an advanced degree from the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Erwin Goering served Bethel College as director of public relations for two decades.
Barbara Fast is professor emerita of piano at the University of Oklahoma. She received the 2025 Frances Clark Center Lifetime Achievement Award, with recognition celebrated at The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025, the biennial meeting of the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy.
She is the recipient of OU’s prestigious David Ross Boyd Professor Award for excellence in teaching and the Regents Award for Superior Teaching.
Former faculty appointments include the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Hesston College and Woodstock International School, Mussoorie, India. Dr. Fast’s broad interests are represented in her undergraduate degree, a double major in piano and flute paired with a minor in English, from Bethel College in 1975.
Masterworks conductor Adrian began in August 2025 as director of choral activities and associate professor of music at Bethel College. Before joining the Bethel music faculty, he taught at Hesston College and Western Mennonite School, Salem, Ore.
Adrian has a D.M.A. in conducting from the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) and an M.M. in choral conducting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and graduated from Bethel College with degrees in music and mathematics.
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
