While most large musical groups celebrate Christmas with Handel’s “Messiah,” a celebratory ode to the arrival of “the Messiah,” the Bremerton Symphony Orchestra is taking a different approach.

The big number at the “Yuletide Memories” concert Dec. 16 is Mozart’s “Requiem,” which the master composer never got to finish.

Music Director Elizabeth Stoyanovich explained that this year marks the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth and that this song is “a gift to us from Mozart.”

There is no doubt that the hauntingly beautiful, if somber, “Requiem” was started by Mozart, but there is much debate in the classical music world about who commissioned the piece and who finished it after he died. Subsequent composers have even offered their own endings for the piece, which they say are truer to Mozart’s style.

The basic story says that Mozart received a request in the summer of 1791 from an anonymous messenger to commission the piece, and was paid half the price to get started. He was to be paid the other half on completion by the following February. Mozart, who was known as a prolific composer, didn’t start the piece until September. By December he was dead, the work unfinished.

It is popularly believed that Mozart’s wife had the piece finished surreptitiously by one of Mozart’s students so she could get paid, and that it was commissioned as a requiem mass by Count Franz Walsegg-Stuppach for his wife Anna, who was just 20 when she died.

“Requiem” will be performed by the symphony and the Concert Chorale, under the direction of LeeAnne Campos.

Performing solos are mezzo Campos, soprano Lara Wax, tenor James Brown and bass Barry Johnson.

Campos is a busy lady, as she is also the founder and director of Lyrica, Ladies Choral Ensemble of Puget Sound, which just had its holiday concert. She also teaches voice at Pacific Lutheran University and sings with the Tacoma Symphony chorus and the Northwest Lutheran Choir.

She began her musical career at age 7 in Munich, Germany and went on to perform on some of the world’s best concert stages. Locally she has appeared with the Tacoma Opera as Pamina in “The Magic Flute.”

This concert marks a return to the Bremerton Symphony stage for Wax, who previously sung with the symphony in Haydn’s “Creation,” Mozart’s “Great Mass,” Handel’s “Messiah” and the one-act opera, “Susanna’s Secret.”

She says that opera is her “performing medium of choice,” but she also sings lighter fare, including musical theater, pop and jazz.

She attended the University of Arizona on a full-ride performance scholarship and went on to earn a master’s of music degree.

Brown is the Chair of Vocal Studies at Pacific Lutheran University.

His impressive musical curriculum vitae includes a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University/New Orleans, a master of music in voice from Juilliard School of Music and a doctoral degree of music arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

He has sung with many major opera companies, including the New York City Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia and at the Spoleto Festival in Italy.

This is also a return engagement for Johnson, who sang with the Bremerton Symphony in the May 2006 performance of selections from the opera Carmina Burana.

He has sung a dozen roles with the Seattle Opera and has performed regionally with Portland Opera, Anchorage Opera and Tacoma Opera. He has also sung with the Seattle Symphony, Tacoma Symphony and Northwest Sinfonietta.

The concert won’t be all heavy songs though. Also on the family-friendly program are numerous holiday favorites.

“There are a lot of popular, fun, ‘family-ish’ songs,” Stoyanovich said. “For the holiday program I like to present an assortment of songs that are accessible for all shapes and varieties of interest. Normally the concerts are not this type of mix.”

The lighter second half of the program will be conducted by assistant conductors Gary Dahl and John Falskow.

Dahl is a timpani-playing member of the percussion section, while Falskow is the music director of the Bremerton Symphony Youth Orchestra.

“I like to give them the opportunity to work with adults,” Stoyanovich said.

Songs on the program include “A Christmas Festival,” “Christmas Day” and “White Christmas.”

Bass clarinetist Larry Fraley will step out of his orchestral role to narrate “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Stoyanovich said the program of familiar holiday songs never gets old, no matter how many times you’ve heard them before.

“You want to hear them a million times,” she said. “These tunes bring back memories — they are part of our culture and our life. It’s tradition.”

Perhaps going to the Bremerton Symphony holiday concert can also become part of family tradition.

The Bremerton Symphony Orchestra and Concert Chorale “Yuletide Memories” concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 16 at the Bremerton High School Performing Arts Center. Maestra Stoyanovich presents a pre-concert chat at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets are $22 adults, $10 youth. Group rates are available. Tickets are available at (360) 373-1722 or online at www.bremertonsymphony.org.