How K-State's Bryan Pinkall, alumni helped revive lost Vatican Mass with Kansas City Chorale

Bryan Pinkall, director of K-State's School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, center, performs with the Kansas City Chorale. | Download this photo.

By K‑State News and Communications Services

A long-lost Vatican Mass, transcribed in the very year Michelangelo completed the Sistine Chapel frescoes, has been brought to life in a stunning new recording by the Kansas City Chorale—with significant contributions from Kansas State University faculty and alumni.

Bryan Pinkall, director of K-State's School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, appears on the album as a singer and soloist, and he is the ensemble's marketing director. Since Pinkall joined the Kansas City Chorale, its albums have received nine Grammy Award nominations, winning five.

"I've had the honor of singing on some extraordinary projects," said Pinkall, "but to give voice to a piece of music that has remained unheard for centuries—and to do so at this level of artistry—is a rare privilege."

A page from the digitized manuscript of "Missa ad te levavi "by Bartolomé de Escobedo. | Download this photo.

The album's centerpiece is the premiere recording of "Missa ad te levavi" by Bartolomé de Escobedo, a 16th-century Spanish composer, theorist and Vatican singer.

The elaborate Renaissance-era Mass, likely last performed in the Sistine Chapel nearly 500 years ago, had been forgotten — surviving only in a single, deteriorating manuscript copied in 1540–41, the same year Michelangelo completed his ceiling frescoes.

K-State alumnus Patrick Dittamo, now a doctoral fellow in musicology at the University of Chicago, led the extraordinary reconstruction effort. Working from digital images of the deteriorating manuscript, Dittamo used historical research and transcription tools to restore Escobedo's intricate polyphony — making it performable for the first time in modern history.

Also featured on the recording is K-State graduate Oliver Hutchison, who sang in the Kansas City Chorale alongside Pinkall.

The performance of the lost Vatican Mass is featured on the Kansas City Chorale's album "The Mirage Calls," recorded under the direction of conductor Charles Bruffy. The album, which traces a musical journey inspired by Marco Polo's path along the Silk Road, includes Mongolian and Middle Eastern folk traditions, as well as contemporary works by Se Enkhbayar and Pulitzer finalist Chen Yi.

The result is a cross-cultural mosaic spanning time, geography and tradition, Pinkall said.

"This album is about rediscovery," said Pinkall. "It reminds us that even after 500 years, music still has the power to connect us — across time, place and culture."

###