Save the Date for "A Festival of Carols" December 14 with the GMChorale

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A very warm "thank you!" to each of you in the lovely audience that came to hear the GMChorale sing "New Every Morning" on November 10. We hope you enjoyed hearing this interesting program of fresh choral classics as much as our singers and Artistic Director Joseph D'Eugenio enjoyed presenting it for you. Want to share your impressions? Scroll down to learn how to send us a comment.

More great music is on the way! The singers of the GMChorale are already rehearsing again with Maestro D'Eugenio, preparing more beautiful choral music to share with you at the Festival of Carols on Saturday, December 14 in Cheshire. Scroll down for details, and please plan to take part in this heart-warming welcome to the holiday season.

The GMChorale frequently collaborates with other performing arts organizations in communities across the region. On Saturday, December 14, 2019, at 5:00 pm, the GMChorale will join the Chancel Choir of First Congregational Church in Cheshire for the 16th annual Festival of Carols, a program of seasonal readings, choral anthems, and community singing of familiar carols directed by Joseph D’Eugenio, who is Choir Director and Organist at First Congregational Church. Listen as the Christmas story unfolds in song and story within the beautifully decorated, candlelit, historic sanctuary of this classic New England church.

The service opens with the carol made famous by the King’s College service, “Once in Royal David’s City,” sung in procession as the choir enters the church.

Saturday
December 14, 2019
5:00PM

SNOW DATE:
Sunday
December 15, 2019
5:00PM

First Congregational Church
111 Church Drive
Cheshire, CT

Free-will donation
www.cheshirecongregational.org

Along with familiar carols such as “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Angels We Have Heard on High,” the service includes modern classics, including the anthem “Lift Up Your Heads” by Newington-based composer Peter Niedmann. In November, the Chancel Choir of First Congregational Church gave the premiere of Niedmann’s latest major work, “New Every Morning," and the GMChorale gave the second performance on November 10.

The music of another Connecticut composer, Sarah Meneely-Kyder, will be heard in her setting of “In the Bleak Midwinter,” a favorite poem by English poet Christina Rossetti. Meneely-Kyder is well-known for her oratorio Letter from Italy, 1944, which was composed for and premiered by the GMChorale. At the GMChorale's concert on November 10, many of you enjoyed the pre-concert talk given by Sarah Meneely-Kyder.

The program also includes evocative settings of Christmas texts by David Hurd, John Rutter, Gustav Holst, and other favorite composers.

The doors open at 4:30 pm; the service begins at 5:00 pm and will conclude by 6:30 pm. No tickets are required; open to all. A free-will donation will be received.

What did you think?

"It was an uplifting concert full of contrasts, suggestive of historical and sectional parts of our country, and all done magnificently. The choir has a good blend and I particularly liked when the sections were grouped separately: the drama added a lot, as did the great violinist. So many to sing with is a joy, I'm sure; it shows!"

That's what one member of the audience wrote about the GMChorale's concert on November 10, "New Every Morning." Were you there? What did you think? Drop us a line! Reply to this email, or write to gmcmedia@gmchorale.org, or leave a comment on our Facebook or Twitter pages, or leave a message at 860-316-4854 We like to hear from you!

Concert tickets make great holiday gifts for the music lovers in your life!
Give the gift of music with tickets to the GMChorale's spring concert. It's a feast of choral classics by Bach, Mozart, and Schubert, with additional selections for string orchestra by Handel, Mozart, and Mascagni.

On Sunday, April 26, 2020, the GMChorale presents With Joy of Heart and Gladness, a program of classic music for voices and string orchestra, with fresh interpretations of choral masterworks, including performances of Bach’s cantata Christ lag in todesbanden (BWV 4) and motet “Lobet den Herrn” (BWV 230), Schubert’s Mass in G Major (D.167), and the exquisite “Laudate Dominum” from Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore (K.339).

Maestro D’Eugenio will also lead the orchestra, comprising some of the finest string players in the region, in the sprightly finale of Handel’s Concerto Grosso in D Major (HWV 323/V), the complete Divertimento in D Major (K.136/125a) of Mozart, and the poignant Intermezzo from Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria Rusticana.

The April 26 program will also include a rare performance of a lesser-known choral work by Mozart, the “Sancta Maria, mater Dei,” K.273.

With Joy of Heart and Gladness

Sunday
April 26, 2020
4:00PM

Doors open at 3:00pm
Pre-concert talk 3:15pm

Middletown High School
Santo Fragilio
Performing Arts Center
200 La Rosa Lane
Middletown, CT

Tickets on sale now:
$9-$40 in advance
$10-$45 at the door
Click HERE for tickets

Maestro D'Eugenio: “As the GMChorale has seen in recent years at our well-attended, highly-praised performances of Carissimi’s oratorio Jepthe and Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor, music-lovers in the region are eager to hear choral music that may have fallen a bit outside the mainstream but is nonetheless of the highest artistic merit. That certainly pertains to Mozart’s ‘Sancta Maria’ — it’s just lovely, but is often pushed to the sidelines by his more frequently-performed music. We are looking forward to bringing this lovely piece back into the limelight where it can be heard and enjoyed.”

The Elm City Girls’ Chorus and the Saecula Singers of New Haven (Tom Brand and Rebecca Rosenbaum, Music Directors) will bring their fresh voices to this program of timeless classics.

The GMChorale is partially funded by generous grants from the following: the Middletown Commission On The Arts; The Marjorie Jolidon Fund of the Greater Hartford Chapter, American Guild of Organists; and Connecticut’s Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.