Acadia Choral Society to begin rehearsals for fall season
The Acadia Choral Society and Artistic Director Daniel Pyle are pleased to announce their fall 2023 season which will culminate in concerts/performances on Saturday, Dec. 2 and Sunday, Dec. 3. The program is entitled “We Sing the Great Mystery,” and is centered on various musical settings of the Medieval Latin Christmas song “O Magnum Mysterium”.
Much of the music for Christmas is highly extroverted and even noisy while referring to the joyful and glorious singing of the heavenly host of angels. This text is more contemplative, directing our attention to the great mystery of the creator of the universe entering into his creation in a stable, surrounded by farm animals and sleeping in a feeding trough. The chorus will sing a diverse group of settings of this one text ranging from Gregorian chant through the polyphonic style of the Renaissance and to modern and even contemporary settings by Francis Poulenc, Morten Lauridsen, and Sally Herman. These versions of “O Magnum M Mysterium” will be interspersed with music based on Christmas carols by Britten, Vaughan Williams, John Rutter, Fred Prentice, and others.
The Acadia Choral Society is open to all who love to sing with no audition needed. They rehearse on Tuesday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., at the General Moore Community Center on State Street in Ellsworth, beginning this year on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
For more information or to join the chorus, go to the website at acadiachoralsociety.org.