Winter Holiday Concert 'Music for a Winter's Eve' to Benefit Youth Chorus

Sunday, December 7, 4:00 pm & Tuesday, December 9, 7:00 pm. – San Diego North Coast Singers will perform Music For A Winter’s Eve at the San Dieguito United Methodist Church in Encinitas. Highlighting the rich musical traditions of holiday music from around the world, the two concerts will explore musical flavors as diverse as the cultures they come from, with the children singing in English, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, and Russian.

Founding Artistic Director Sally Husch Dean has devised a program that brings together a rousing holiday collection of traditional and less familiar tunes. The Sunday concert will open with the advance treble choir, Caprice, performing a Greek seasonal song, “The Kalanta of the New Year;” a Hebrew song of peace, “Ma Navu;” and a popular holiday medley, “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow,” “A Marshmallow World,” and “Frosty the Snowman.” The high school mixed-voice choir, Capella, will present an original setting of “Silent Night” for voices, piano and flute, and “Hope for Resolution” by the song- writing duo of Paul Caldwell and Sean Ivory, a deeply moving celebration of cultural diversity that juxtaposes a European chant melody with a song from South Africa. Capella’s choral tapestry will conclude with “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” and “Thula Sizwe” (“Nation, Do Not Cry”), a song commemorating South Africa’s struggle for racial and political freedom. The intermediate choir, Brioso, will sing “African Noel;” two Russian songs of winter, “Minka” and “Little Birch Tree;” and a beautiful Hebrew song , “Al Shlosha d’varim,” a lyrical setting of the popular maxim (from Jewish morality laws) translated to mean: “The world is sustained by three things: by truth, by justice, and by peace.” The youngest children choir, Giocoso, will sing a traditional Japanese song along with a charming Italian carol, “Dormi, Dormi” (“Sleep, Sleep”), before closing with a delightful musical setting of “The Night before Christmas.”

On Tuesday the advanced treble choir Caprice and mixed-voice high school choir Capella will be joined by guest harpist Donna Vaughan and Sorelle San Diego, a women’s chamber chorus, to perform the entire “Ceremony of Carols” by Benjamin Britten. Britten’s setting for treble voices and harp of various medieval texts is one of the composer’s most popular choral works, heard every Christmas in churches and concert halls throughout the world. Also featured in the program will be Johannes Brahms’s beautiful Ave Maria.

The annual winter concert is an annual holiday fundraising event that benefits the children’s chorus, as tuition covers only 55% of the chorus’s annual budget. All proceeds from ticket sales will support the program’s operational needs.

CONCERT INFORMATION:

Date: Sunday, December 7, 2014, 4:00 pm (All four youth choirs)
Tuesday, December 9, 2014, 7:00 pm (Advanced choirs and women’s chamber chorus)
Location: San Dieguito United Methodist Church
170 Calle Magdalena, Encinitas, CA 92024
Tickets at the door: $12 general /$5 student

ABOUT THE SAN DIEGO NORTH COAST SINGERS:

The San Diego North Coast Singers (SDNCS) is one of the most reputed children’s choruses in San Diego. Since 1993, SDNCS has provided an excellent choral music education to children and teenagers ages 7-18. The chorus is recognized in the region for its exceptional artistic quality and its joyful and spirited performance of songs from diverse cultures. Highlighting SDNCS’s exciting 2014/2015 season is a collaborative performance with the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus of Jonathan Dove’s grand cantata “There Was a Child” (2009), composed in the spirit of Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams. SDNCS will be holding auditions for new members in January 2015. Please come and sing with us!

For more information see: http://www.northcoastsingers.com