Northern Adirondack Vocal Ensemble

The Quintessential Sound of Christmas
The Northern Adirondack Vocal Ensemble will give three performances of a Festival of Lessons
and Carols:
- Friday, December 21 at 7:30 pm at Notre Dame Church in Malone
- Saturday, December 22 at 7:30 pm at St. Peter’s Church in Plattsburgh
- Sunday, December 23 at 3:00 pm at St. Agnes Church in Lake Placid
The Northern Adirondack Vocal Ensemble (NAVE), conducted by Andrew Benware, is a mixed chamber choir of professional and amateur singers: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. A small and balanced ensemble to which each member brings extensive previous choral experience, NAVE performs a variety of periods and styles with harmonies of four-to-eight parts.
NAVE’s twenty members represent a cross-section of the Adirondacks, hailing from points in Clinton, Essex, and Franklin Counties. Distinct from other choral groups in our region, NAVE is essentially an a cappella choir focusing on the rich and historical repertoire composed specifically for chamber choir unaccompanied by instruments.
NAVE’s Festival of Lessons and Carols follows the traditional model of those performed annually on Christmas Eve (since 1928) at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England. The customary format is built around nine short Bible readings from the Old and New Testaments that trace the story of the fall of humanity and the promise of a Messiah to the birth of Jesus. Anthems, carols, and hymns are liberally interspersed throughout to illuminate the narrative musically.
more …..
Weatherwatch Farm • 550 Number 37 Road • Saranac NY 12981
518-293-7613 • hillholl@hughes.net • www.hillandhollowmusic.org
H
ill and Hollow Music
Page 2 -
NAVE’s special a cappella version features two early music masterpieces sung in Latin: the medieval carol dating from the 12th century, “Personent Hodie” (“On This Day Earth Shall Ring”) and the 16th-century renaissance antiphonal motet “Hodie Christus Natus Est” (“Today Christ is Born”) by Jan Pieters Sweelinck. Fast-forward to a pair of contemporary works that have won a place in the constellation of essential Christmas music: “O Magnum Mysterium” (“O Great Mystery) by Morten Lauridsen (1995) and “The Shepherd’s Carol” by Bob Chilcott (2001).
The program includes the well-loved traditional carols “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly,” “Sans Day Carol,” and “Herefordshire Carol” (respectively Polish, Cornish, and English). Also of interest are Boris Ord’s setting of the 15th-century text “Adam Lay Ybounden” and Harold Darke’s setting of Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter” (both were English composers active in the mid-20th century).
Of special note will be the folkish “A Virgin Unspotted” (1778) by the Colonial American composer William Billings and the juicy “Bogoroditsje Djevo” (“Hail Mary”) of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1915), so evocative of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Community members will read the texts, which include passages from Genesis and the Gospels, as well as a contemporary poem, “Annunciation,” by Denise Levertov. The audience is invited to join with the choir in congregational singing – accompanied by the mighty organ! – of familiar Advent and Christmas hymns: “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Silent Night,” “While Shepherd’s Watched Their Flocks by Night,” ”As With Gladness Men of Old,” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”
Admission is a suggested donation of $10. For more information please telephone 518-293-7613 or send a message by e-mail to hillholl@hughes.net

This entry was posted on December 6, 2012 at 7:54 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.