Islanders will have to travel off-island to hear the Vashon Island Chorale when they perform at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 30, at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall. This combined choir concert of Mozart’s “Great Mass in C Minor” marks the chorale’s second visit to Benaroya Hall at the invitation of conductor Mark Adrian.

Chorale Artistic Director Gary Cannon met with Adrian to discuss pieces for the concert, and eventually the two selected Mozart’s Great Mass.

“It’s a rather unusual and rarely heard work,” said Cannon, “and on a scale unlike any of his other pieces, including his Requiem. It is the most complex of his chorale works.”

According to Cannon, Mozart wrote the piece after he fell in love with his soon-to-be wife, soprano Constanze. Wanting to show off his wife’s talent and impress his father with his own compositional skills, Mozart “did as much as he could to make it a great piece,” said Cannon, “And it shows. It is beautiful and emotional.”

The four ensembles — Vashon Island Chorale, Northwest Chamber Chorus,  Sacred Music Chorus and Sammamish Symphony Orchestra — together will perform the Great Mass, featuring Vashon’s Jennifer and Andrew Krikawa as two of the four soloists, with Adrian conducting.

Before the Mozart piece, each group will take the stage with its own musical program. Seventy-five Vashon chorale members plus pianist Linda Lee and violinists Karin Choo and Gaye Detzer will perform Edward Elgar’s “The Snow,” Morten Lauridsen’s “Dirait-on” and the premiere of Bronwyn Edward’s “Strawberry Kisses,” under the direction of Cannon.

Tickets for the Benaroya concert are available at the Vashon Bookshop and www.vashonislandchorale.org and will be sold at “What’s So Great About Mozart?” at the Blue Heron on March 16.