LEWISTON — Directed by John Corrie, the Bates College Choir will perform two works by Franz Josef Haydn on Friday and Saturday, April 1-2, at Olin Arts Center Concert Hall.

The concerts are free and open to the public, but tickets are required. To reserve seats, call 786-6135 or email [email protected].

Accompanied by an orchestra of brass, woodwinds, percussion and strings, the choir will sing Haydn’s “Te Deum,” a short work for the full choir; and “Missa in Angustiis,” better known as the “Lord Nelson Mass,” which features four student soloists. They are sopranos Abigael Merson, a junior from Falmouth, and Sarah Dik, a sophomore from Boxford, Mass.; tenor Kim Liaw, a junior from Ontario, Calif.; and bass Andrew Bernard, a senior from Merchantville, N.J.

The 1798 “Missa in Angustiis,” one of six masses that Haydn wrote toward the end of his life, and one of 14 in all, is considered one of his greatest works. “If the students should learn one Haydn mass as part of their choral education, then it should be this one,” Corrie said.

“Missa in Angustiis” is Latin for “Mass for Troubled Times.” Haydn, an Austrian, completed the piece as the armies of Napoleon made his nation extremely vulnerable — yet a mere six weeks before the work’s debut in September 1798, the British under Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the French emperor in the Battle of the Nile, leading to the nickname of the mass.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m. in the concert hall at 75 Russell St.