Our pastor (new since August) is interested in our choir offering "Choral Vespers" on Divine Mercy Sunday to celebrate the canonization of Blessed Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. My initial reaction (after passing out) was to offer the Mozart Solemn Vespers since we sang the Monteverdi in 2010. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure anybody will be vertical to offer much of anything after our first Holy Week, Triduum, Easter together. After hearing a local university choir sing the Mozart tonight, I am convinced this piece would be the wrong venture for us this year.

So my second stage of thought is to find something choral by Italians Castelnuovo-Tedesco or Menotti and as well as something by Poles Paderewski or Górecki, but those are the first four composers which came to mind, and my thoughts are a Magnificat and a Te Deum. I even looked here, but it's a bit intimidating: for now, anyway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Polish_composers

Pragmatically, the best way to do this, with minimal injury to our skeleton-crew staff, is to augment our choral scholars and have this augmented core prepare to sing for Triduum, while rehearsing the Vespers rep so that it's Prêt-à-Porter by Low Sunday without driving me into the nut house.

I would appreciate any counsel and/or solidarność this forum can lend.