Advent Choral Concert

Advent Project Choir presents a cappella program

A new concert organization, the Advent Project Choir, will present a concert of Advent and Christmas choral music in the Sacred Heart Chapel at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church on Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 4:00 pm.  The performance is free and open to the public.

The concert, conducted by Richard Allen Roe, will feature works by German, Italian, English and American composers.  The all a cappella program will include the motet Supereminet omnem scientiam from the Cantiones Sacrae of Heinrich Schütz, one of Germany’s most important early baroque composers.  The Renaissance is represented by a number of traditional German carols, such as Resonet in laudibus and Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier, arranged by Johann Eccard, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s motet Alma redemptoris mater.  Modern selections include The Best of Rooms by Randall Thompson, O Spotless Rose by Herbert Howells, and Und unser lieben Frauen Traum, by Max Reger.  A central focus and highlight of the program will be R. Anthony Lee’s setting of The Great “O” Antiphons, composed in 1999.  The program concludes with Johann Hermann Schein’s Ich bin die Wurzel des Geschlechtes David, from his collection of motets, Israelsbrünnlein. 

The choir is an auditioned group of singers from around the Greater Washington area.  Richard Allen Roe, a former member of the Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart and pupil of Helmuth Rilling, has been active as a conductor of church, community, university, and professional choral groups since 1978.