Chamber Singers Christmas Concerts

Time is running short to purchase tickets for the annual Chamber Singers Christmas concerts in Armstrong Browning Library. The two concerts will be presented on Monday, December 6, and Tuesday, December 7, at 7:30 p.m. each night. These programs are among the most eagerly awaited events at Baylor University, with twenty-five of the School of Music’s finest vocalists performing in the visually and aurally resplendent McLean Foyer of Meditation.
The Chamber Singers are conducted by Dr. Brian A. Schmidt, Baylor’s Associate Director of Choral Music. The assistant conductor is Erin Schmidt, a graduate student from Waco, and the accompanist is Laurel Engelhardt, a freshman from the Houston-area town of Porter.
Opening the programs will be “Conditor alme siderum” by fifteenth-century Flemish composer Guillaume Du Fay. Its text begins as follows: “O generous creator of the stars, everlasting light of believers, o Christ, redeemer of us all, hear now our prayers.”
Next will come four of the seven variations on “Lo, How a Rose Is Blooming” by German composer Hugo Distler. These form part of his 1933 work, Die Weihnachtsgeschichte (“The Christmas Story”), Op. 10. The reader will be Assistant Professor of Voice Mark Diamond.
Also to be heard are “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” by John Gardner (featuring percussionists Thomas Quinlivan and Alex Gerleman), “A la Nanita Nana” from Conrad Susa’s Carols and Lullabies (with Erin Schmidt conducting), and Mark Wilberg’s setting of the traditional French carol “Whence Is That Goodly Fragrance Flowing.”
Closing the concerts will be Javier Busto’s “Ave Maria,” leading into Russian composer Alexander Grechaninoff’s “Bogoroditse Devo,” and then an arrangement by Mark Wilberg of “Away in a Manger.”
General admission tickets for the Chamber Singers Christmas concerts are $15. They are available in the lobby of Baylor University’s Glennis McCrary Music Building, now through Friday during regular business hours. For more ticket information, the telephone number is 254-710-3571.