As it has for nearly five decades, the Sippican Choral Society of Marion ushers in the Christmas season in Southeastern Massachusetts with its annual Christmas concerts on Friday, December 5 at Grace Episcopal Church in New Bedford at 8:00 pm, and again on Sunday, December 7 at 4:00 pm in Tabor Academy’s Wickenden Chapel in Marion.
The chorus will again be joined by the fabulous Sippican Children’s Chorus under the direction of Leslie Piper, which will sing two of their own pieces, the German carol “Still, Still, Still” and the contemporary gospel spiritual “Go Where I Send Thee” by Caldwell and Ivory. They will also join the choral society on a number of selections.
If you want to bring comfort and joy into your life this Christmas, this concert is a wonderful place to start. The chorus will open the concert with the joyous Advent motet “Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Gates” by Andreas Hammerschmidt, followed by Haydn’s “Qui Sedes,” which is based on the first two verses of Psalm 80. The repertoire also will include some familiar Christmas music, such as “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen” and “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.”
Comfort music will include a very unusual – and hauntingly beautiful – arrangement of “Lo, How a Rose” merged with Amanda McBroom’s “The Rose.” Chorus member Barbara Connulty will be the soloist for this piece.
In addition, a chamber choir, composed of about 20 chorus members, will sing three pieces.
As always, the audience will have the chance to sing along with the chorus on several familiar Christmas carols.
The following Monday evening, about 40 members of the chorus will sing selections from the concert at the Sippican Long Term Health Care Center in Marion.
Now in its 49th season, the 80-member Sippican Choral Society is under the direction of Mr. Brian Roderick, with Ms. Michelle Gordon of Mattapoisett as its accompanist. The group performs at least two concerts every year, singing the works of the world’s great composers, as well as contemporary music.
Beginning with our spring concert in April, the chorus will be celebrating 50 years of providing classical and popular music to audiences along the South Coast. That concert will be a joint one with the Tri-County Symphonic Band, reminiscent of the chorus’s very first concert in 1965 when it performed with the same symphonic band. Back then, with Shirley Cowell as the 35-member chorus’s first President, Zavan Mazmanian was the first Music Director, and Thelma Ostenfeld was the accompanist. John Pandolfi directed the Tri-County Symphonic Band.
Tickets for this year’s Christmas concert are $15 each ($7 for children under 18), and are now available at The Bookstall in Marion, the Symphony Shop in Dartmouth, the Euro in Fairhaven, and No Kidding in Mattapoisett’s Ropewalk. Chorus members (and parents of the children’s chorus members) also have tickets for sale. A limited number will be available at the door. Doors for the Friday concert at Grace Church on County Street in New Bedford will open at 7:30 pm. Doors of the Sunday concert at Wickenden Chapel on Spring Street in Marion will open at 3:30 pm.
For further information about these concerts, contact Peter McDonald at 508-748-0286 or via email at peterconversemcdonald@gmail.com.