Marist Choir Celebrates 200th Anniversary of 'Silent Night'

CHICAGO, IL -- The Marist High School choir will celebrate the 200th anniversary of “Silent Night,” the renowned Christmas song, at a special event on Saturday, Dec. 15, at 4:30 p.m. in the school’s chapel. Dubbed the “Festival of Lights,” the choir will welcome the light of Christmas through the darkness of winter. Community members are welcome.

The original poem was written by Joseph Mohr, a priest from Austria. Legend has it that the church organ had been inundated with mice, and in other versions of the story, water-damaged. The priest took his poem to the local schoolmaster, Franz Xaver Gruber, and asked him to write a melody. The song “Stille Nacht” was sung for the first time on Christmas Eve in 1818 in St. Nicolas Church in Obernorf, a town near Salzburg in the Austrian Alps. It became a universal hymn, and is now sung in more than 300 languages and dialects.

The choir will gently welcome the Christ child and honor a carol that is timeless in its message of peace. It will be an international celebration, as Marist virtually connects with the chorus at Maristenkellog in Mindelheim, Germany, a Marist Brothers' school.

Attendees should enter at the school's main office at the west end of the building at 4200 West 115th Street in Chicago. There is no cost for the event.