"The Many Moods of Christmas" is the theme for the Fairfield University Glee Club's annual holiday concert on Friday, Dec. 5, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 6, at 2 p.m. Both performances will take place at Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Since the first Christmas, cultures around the world have expressed the joy, wonder and hope of the holiday through song. Under the direction of Carole Ann Maxwell, the Glee Club will take listeners through many traditions - from across Europe, Africa and the United States - presenting several compositions in their original languages. The varied program includes Pavel Chesnokov's "Spaseniye Sodelal," sung in Slavonic; composer Via Olatunji and arranger Wendell Whalum's "Betelehemu," a Nigerian piece sung in Yoruba; Ariel Quintana's "Hodie Christus Natus Est;" "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" by Eddie Pola and George Wyler; and two sections of "The Many Moods of Christmas Suite" by Robert Russell Bennett and Robert Shaw.

The Rev. Charles Allen, S.J., is the moderator for the Glee Club and Galen Tate will accompany on organ.

The Glee Club is a mixed chorus of more than 120 undergraduate and graduate students continuing a 50-year legacy of musical excellence on campus and abroad. The choir has performed at Carnegie Hall, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Westminster Cathedral in London, the Aula Paolo VI at the Vatican and the U.S. Military academies at West Point and Annapolis.

In addition to the full choir, the holiday concert will feature soloists singing Christmas favorites and performances by the Glee Club's four smaller ensembles, the Chamber Singers, the Men's Ensemble, Sweet Harmony, and the Sine Nomine Singers, the resident quartet.

Dr. Maxwell, director of Choral and Liturgical Music for Fairfield University since 1980, is also the artistic director and conductor of The Mendelssohn Choir of Connecticut and chorus master of The Greater Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra. She has conducted choruses for the Prague Radio Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Orchestra, the Connecticut Grand Opera and Orchestra and the Yale Opera Ensemble.

She has shared the stage with jazz icon Dave Brubeck and the Dave Brubeck Quartet, opera legends Sherrill Milnes, Marilyn Horne and Renee Fleming, and composers Stephen Schwarz, Stephen Sondheim and Charles Strouse.

Tickets are $10, with discounts for staff, faculty and students. For tickets, call the Quick Center box office at (203) 254-4010 or toll free at 1-877-ARTS-396.

Posted On: 11-18-2003 09:11 AM

Volume: 36 Number: 119