St. Scholastica's Christmas Concert Features a Premiere Special Performance Along with Traditional Favorites

Release Date: 11/23/11

Tyler Kaiser

The College of St. Scholastica Music Department will celebrate the Christmas season with a Christmas Concert at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13, in the Mitchell Auditorium. Admission is $5 and the public is invited.

The concert will feature a premiere performance commissioned for the occasion, composed by Tyler Kaiser, adjunct instructor of music. St. Scholastica music ensembles will perform together, including the concert band, string ensemble, steel drums, guitars and choir. Together they will perform "Christmas Variations."

"The variations performed reflect the various music ensembles at St. Scholastica," noted Kaiser. Then composition "also expresses a diversity of history, culture and style, symbolic of the liberal arts experience."

The concert will also feature a variety of Christmas and holiday songs played by each of St. Scholastica's instrumental and choral ensembles. Kaiser also will direct the guitar ensemble, which will perform "Shchedryk" (Carol of the Bells), a traditional Ukrainian Christmas carol and Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the "Nutcracker."

The Concert Band, conducted by Marianne Connelly, assistant professor of music, will perform the Mannheim Steamroller version of "Fanfare and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" by Chip Davis, adapted by Robert Longfield.

"It opens with a glorious fanfare in the high Renaissance tradition of antiphonal brass choirs and then the contemporary 'Mannheim' treatment of the familiar carol with a rock groove," noted Connelly.

The Jazz Band will perform "Go Tell It On the Mountain," arranged by Roy Phillippe. "It is a real powerhouse of gospel rock and swing," Connelly said.

Bret Amundson, director of choral activities, will conduct the choral ensembles. The Concert Choir will sing Eric Whitacre's mystical "Lux Aurumque." The Bella Voce Choir will sing a Spanish carol, "Dime el Camino," and the combined women will sing the traditional "Little Drummer Boy."

The String Orchestra, under the direction of Penny Schwarze, professor of music, will play an excerpt from Arcangelo Corelli's "Christmas Concerto," a concerto grosso from the Baroque period written for a church performance in Rome on Christmas night.

For more information, visit spotlight.css.edu or call (218) 723-7000. Spotlight@css.edu is St. Scholastica's one-stop shop for arts and lectures information and tickets.