December
3, 2004
MHC
Vespers Ushers In Holiday Season
Photo
by: Fred LeBlanc
Catharine Melhorn
(right) leads Vespers rehearsal. |
Approximately 200 students and faculty will
participate in Mount Holyoke’s annual Christmas Vespers,
a concert tradition more than a century old, on Sunday, December
5, at 4 and 7:30 pm in Abbey Chapel. Perform-ing will be the
College’s Glee Club and Concert Choir, directed by Hammond-Douglass
Professor of Music Catharine Melhorn; the Orchestra and Chamber
Singers, conducted by Mark Bartley; Vocal Jazz, directed by Mark
Gionfriddo; and the English Handbell Choir, led by student Lauren
Richetti ’05, a South Hadley native. Organist Dick Damon
and a brass quartet are also featured.
In addition to familiar Congregational carols and the much-beloved candlelit
Gregorian chant processional, the concert will include seasonal choral works
from around the world, from Renaissance dances to a Latino “Gloria” with
conga drum and maracas. There will be several opportunities for the audience
to join with choirs and orchestra in singing both familiar and lesser-known carols.
Concert Choir selections include an innovative “Ubi Caritas” by contemporary
Canadian composer Rupert Lang, requiring improvised moments of speaking, shouting,
and chanting; also the rollicking English carol “Past Three O’Clock,” accompanied
by flutist Usher Shrair ’08. Chamber Singers will perform Joan Szymko’s “Nada
te Turbe” featuring solo cellist Michael Jao, a veteran of many Musicorda
summers. Vocal Jazz will premiere “Look Out, King Wenceslas!,” commissioned
from Westfield resident Clifton J. Noble Jr.
The Glee Club’s set begins with a modern version of “Adeste Fideles” by
Hungarian composer Gyorgy Orban, followed by works of two New York composers,
Eve Beglarian’s “Lullaby” and Francisco Nunez’s “Dawn” from
Los Primeros Pastores. The Mount Holyoke Orchestra will play Alfred Reed’s “Russian
Christmas”; the handbell choir will perform a Christmas popular favorite, “Little
Drummer Boy.” All choirs will combine with the orchestra to conclude the
concert with Stephen Mager’s arrangement of the Austrian carol “O
Glorious Night.”
There is no admission charge for this concert, but seating in Abbey Chapel is
limited. Doors
open 35 minutes before each
performance.
The
counter is
1,781
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