Joyeux Noël, a seasonal concert presented by the Downers Grove Choral Society

Begin your holiday festivities with the Downers Grove Choral Society as they present Joyeux Noël, a concert of music celebrating the holiday season on Sunday, November 20, 2011 at 3:00 pm at Faith Church in Downers Grove, located at the corner of 59^th and Fairview. The DGCS will perform seasonal works featuring Camille Saint-Saëns Christmas Oratorio and Gerald Finzi’s In Terra Pax, along with works by Gabriel Faure, David Conte, Michael Fink, and Kirke Mechem.

Tickets for this concert can be purchased by visiting www.dgcs.org, by calling 630.515.0030 or by visiting Anderson’s Bookshop on Main Street in Downers Grove.

If you are familiar with the traditional Christmas texts, filled with shepherds and angels, peace and goodwill, stars and glorias, then you’ve likely heard some of the timeless ways the story of the birth of the baby in Bethlehem has been conveyed through music. Many of the works featured in this concert take familiar seasonal texts and set them in glorious and thought provoking ways.  Gerald Finzi takes the words of Saint Luke’s gospel, marries them with a 1913 poem by Robert Bridges and proclaims peace and good will to all men in his 1956 composition, In Terra Pax.  As one of the composer’s last works, its lush harmonies and drama thrill performers and audiences alike.

In Camille Saint-Saëns’s Christmas Oratorio, the composer sets a variety of texts related to the Christmas story to different styles of music. He audibly quotes some of the composers he most admired, including Bach and Beethoven. Another of the featured composers, Gabriel Faure,  was one of Saint-Saëns’s students and created the prize-winning Cantique de Jean Racine, also performed on this concert. Both men are considered to be iconically representative of French music, and they formed a friendship that spanned decades.

Bring your friends and family to listen to featured harpist, Claudine Cappelle-Harig and outstanding vocal soloists from the Chicago region including: Melinda Alberty, soprano; Laura Sauer,mezzo-soprano; Victoria Linich, alto; Klaus Georg, tenor; and Keven Keys, baritone.  Sauer and Linich both have strong ties to the Downers Grove community.  Laura is an alumna of Downers Grove South High School, and Victoria Linich is a dedicated member of the Downers Grove Choral Society.

Join us for a post-concert reception to meet our new director, Dr. Amy G. Weller, following her debut with the Downers Grove Choral Society. Weller comes to Downers Grove with a wealth of knowledge and experience complemented by her enthusiasm and boundless energy.

Before joining DGCS, Weller served as the conductor of the University Singers and instructor of Choral Literature at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. Previously, she was Director of Choral Organizations and Associate Professor of Music at DePaul University.  While at DePaul, Weller founded the DePaul Community Chorus, a thriving ensemble that owes its existence to her own love of community choral singing.  “A Community chorus has an esprit de corps that is unique among musical ensembles.  Singers sing in community choruses because they want to sing, not because they are required to do so.” Weller continues,  “The variety of ages and backgrounds that are represented in a community chorus is part of the attraction for me.  So, too, is the role that a community chorus can play in the life of its members and in society at large. “

Already in possession of a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stanford University, she acquired a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from Dominican University while staying “at home” with two young sons.  During this time, she edited a scholarly edition of Anton Reicha’s Missa Pro Defunctis (Requiem) that premiered in Palo Alto, California in November of 2009.

Dr. Weller doesn’t just have experience directing, she is equally comfortable on both sides of the podium. In Chicago, she sang for several seasons with His Majesties Clerkes, the group now known as Bella Voce. Before arriving in Chicago, she sang with the Blossom Festival Chorus, the chorus that performs with the Cleveland Orchestra during that symphony’s summer season. She entered Cornell University planning to acquire a degree in environmental sciences, but after first singing with the Blossom Festival Chorus at the age of 18 and then taking a music theory course her freshman year, she was hooked. “I had studied violin for years and had become quite proficient on the instrument but it was the nature of choral music-making that really touched me.  The act of singing not just notes, but texts is what I think attracted me to the medium.  Communicating written words that are set sensitively to music is the ultimate in expression.”

Dr. Weller looks forward to exploring varied and exciting settings of texts during the Downers Grove Choral Society rehearsals which are held on Monday evenings at the Indian Boundary YMCA in the Milnes Room. Referring to Thelma Roe Milnes, founder of DGCS, and her son, Sherrill, who has performed lead roles in operas around the world, Weller says, “The nature and history of the Downers Grove Choral Society, in particular, I find incredibly exciting.  It isn’t every community group that has as its founder the mother of an internationally acclaimed opera star!” Rehearsals for the group take place on Monday evenings at the YMCA, To schedule an audition time, or for information about future performances, call 630.515.0300 or info@dgcs.org.