Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

What do you remember about Christmas past? Decorating the tree? Playing outside in the snow? Setting up the Nativity scene? Gathering with family and friends? Christmas Eve worship service?

 

The Community Chorus will be “Remembering Decembers” with a concert program that features a nostalgic look at Christmas memories through favorite songs, sacred and secular. The concert is this Sunday, December 15 at 3:00 p.m. at the Polk County High School Auditorium. Proceeds from ticket sales support the Rotary Club of Tryon Scholarship Fund.

 

Dell Morgan will again be directing the chorus for this special Christmas Concert and Pam McNeil will accompany on the grand piano, but there are special treats in store: two ensembles, instrumentalists that include cello, flute, guitar, trumpet, trombone and percussion and the annual Christmas carol sing-along.

 

Chorus renditions of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” John Rutter’s “The Very Best Time of the Year,” Wilhousky’s “Carol of the Bells,” and a variation on Pachelbel’s “Canon,” among other favorites, conjure up images of Christmas joy and family traditions. The concert includes two rousing spirituals: “Children, Go Where I Send Thee,” and “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem,” that features a “down home” quartet accompanied by guitar and stand-up bass. The afternoon will end with wonderful arrangements of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Festival First Nowell,” accompanied by brass and percussion, followed by the audience singing carols, ending with “Joy to the World.”

 

This year’s concert is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Mark Schweizer, who sang with the chorus and directed its 2011 and 2012 Spring and Christmas Concerts. Mark was a big man with an equally big and warm personality and musical talent: a professor, performer, composer, arranger, editor and librettist.

 

The Christmas Concert includes a carol arranged by Dr. Schweizer: the Huron Carol “Twas in The Moon of Wintertime.” The carol, sung by the entire chorus, will feature Barb Tilly on flute.

 

Submitted by Sandra Sibley