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Holy Week Concerts

A quintet for those who've given up chocolate for Lent and need a little something to get through these last days -- or for anyone who wants to hear some very sweet sounds.

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By Alicia Zuckerman

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1. St. Paul's College Singers
Though Handel's Messiah is a Christmas staple, it was actually written as an Eastertime oratorio and intended to be performed on Palm Sunday. Here, it is. (March 24, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Queens.)

2. The Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge
Visiting from across the pond, the chorus performs Thomas Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah, Poulenc's Litanies, and Philip Moore's Three Prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (March 27, St. Bartholomew's Church.)

3. ARTEK and the St. Francis Singers
Early-music ensemble and choir present "Musical Meditations for Good Friday," including Scarlatti's Missa Defunctorum (Requiem Mass) during the Veneration of the Cross service, in its first known performance since the eighteenth century. (March 29, St. Francis of Assisi Church.)

4. The Holy Trinity Choir
Fauré's profoundly moving Requiem is performed with the Holy Trinity Choir and Soloists on Good Friday. (March 29, Church of the Holy Trinity.)

5. Easter Sunday Jazz Mass
The Benny Powell Quartet helps celebrate, then -- having gone from Birdland to Sweet Basil and now St. Peter's Church -- the George Gee Make-Believe Ballroom Orchestra offers a special Easter concert. (March 31, St. Peter's Church.)