Welcome to Holiday Concert of Carols - Chris Shepard
For our performance of Randall Thompson’s Frostiana last year, I wrote about how much my childhood in Vermont gave me a special affinity for Frost’s poetry, as well as for all things natural. I think the same thing is true of Christmas music—songs about “bleak midwinter” and the “winter’s snow” resonate specially for someone growing up in northern climes. Rare was the year that the ground wasn’t already covered by Thanksgiving, and certainly by mid-December, my hometown of Montpelier looked like a Currier & Ives print. I think it’s because of this that I have a real love of Christmas music, and I’m always so thrilled to share some of my favorite holiday repertoire with audiences.
And in a very real sense, that is the theme of our concert—it’s just some of my favorite Christmas music! Many of these pieces come from Carols for Choirs, that collection of carol arrangements so familiar to church choirs in the English-speaking world. The first volume came out more than fifty years ago, and ever since, the carol arrangements by Sir David Willcocks and John Rutter have become ubiquitous. But I also wanted to include some American compositions alongside their English cousins. So we present Kirke Mechem’s Seven Joys of Christmas, a lovely setting of seven less familiar carols, as well as Norman Dello Joio’s Holy Infant’s Lullaby. Another lullaby, Terly, Terlow was written by Australian composer Richard Charlton, whose Blakesongs we presented last year. Our own Martin Sedek, Masterwork’s associate conductor, is represented by his beautiful setting of the ancient O Magnum Mysterium text.
And of course, how could we sing in the Christmas season without doing just a little bit from Handel’s Messiah, Masterwork’s touchstone work from the choir’s inception six decades ago? We present four movements from that oratorio, highlighting one of our most accomplished singers, Mary Pat Finucane. The spotlight is on another Masterwork singer for the perennial favorite O Holy Night, soprano Casandra LaMotte. The focus is on you for four of the carols—we look forward to hearing you join us for four of these wonderful Christmas carols!
Thank you for joining Masterwork tonight, and we hope to see you again later in the concert season. As for this holiday season, we offer all of you our very best wishes as the year comes to a close. May 2017 bring the very best to you and your family.