By JOANNE BRIANA-GARTNER
Holiday music. It means different things to different people. There are some who embrace the all-holiday radio channels that start playing Christmas tunes on November 1 and others who would rather not be subjected to Mariah Carey singing “All I Want For Christmas Is You” multiple times a day for two months.
Sometimes even our hatred of certain holiday songs can become a tradition.
My kids, for example, are thrilled when any version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” comes on the radio, simply because they know how much their mother dislikes it.
For the most part however, holiday music is beloved and one of the best ways to experience the sounds of the season is through a live performance. One theme woven through most of the holiday-themed productions is how groups balance the desire to keep things fresh for their performers but also to present the traditional favorites that audiences come to expect.
The Solstice Singers will present “The Holly & The Ivy” December 17 and 18 at the Woods Hole Community Hall.
“As performers we are always seeking out new experiences, even as we strive to bring a certain familiarity to all of our concerts,” said Andrew Jonathan Welch, artistic director for the Falmouth Chorale, which will present its annual holiday concert on Saturday and Sunday, December 10 and 11, in Falmouth.
To create this balance, Mr. Welch said that this year’s holiday program will feature Handel’s “Messiah,” “one of the best-known and most-beloved chorale works,” but instead of a straightforward performance, the entire first half of the concert will showcase Handel’s personal journey toward writing the piece. “It’s a fascinating story,” Mr. Welch said. “I thought what if we take this well-known work and do choruses from it but we also do works that Handel wrote beforehand—early successes that he built upon, including his first collaboration with Charles Jennens, who would go on to write the libretto for ‘Messiah’—and then show a little of what Handel does after ‘Messiah.’” The post-“Messiah” pieces include selections from “Theodora,” a piece that Handel himself considered to be better than “Messiah.” “We will close the first half of the concert with excerpts from ‘Theodora’ and then the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ so the audience can decide which they think is better,” Mr. Welch said.
The second half of the concert will feature the theme of togetherness at the holidays.
The chamber singers, a 15-voice subset of the chorale, will perform three works by contemporary composer Dale Trombore that are “centered around the idea of celebrating the end of the year, coming together and what we look for in this time of reflection: warmth, family and friends,” Mr. Welch said. After the chamber singers the chorale will return for the final 15 minutes of the show with three works that highlight the joys of friends and proximity, including “Distance Can’t Keep Us Two Apart” by composer Chen Yi, “The Road Home” by Stephen Paulus, and finally finishing the program with “No Place Like Home for the Holidays.”
“Close To You: A Celebration of Togetherness At The Holidays” will be performed on December 10 at 4 PM and December 11 at 3 PM at First Congregational Church in Falmouth. “The holiday concert is always popular and we’re so grateful for the use of the church,” Mr. Welch said. “It’s a wonderful venue. We love singing for the community.”
Danica Buckley, artistic director for the Cape Cod Chorale, said that for the chorale’s annual holiday concert she aims to keep things fresh but to also program a few audience favorites every year. “ I also intentionally program women composers, people of color and other minorities,” she said.
The Cape Cod Chorale will present “Holiday Fanfare” on December 10 and 11 at First Church in Sandwich.
In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the chorale performed two sold-out holiday shows featuring the brass quintet Andromeda Brass. Last year the chorale performed a smaller concert at the 1717 Meeting House in West Barnstable. “This year we are back to a big concert with all the trimmings, brass, piano and timpani,” Ms. Buckley said. “We are so excited!”
The program will open with “Ring the Bells” by African American composer and conductor Dr. Rosephanye Powell. Ms. Buckley described the piece as “fantastic and energetic.” A second piece by Dr. Powell, “Christmas Memories,” will also be performed. Ms. Buckley described it as “more slow jazz.”
To honor the local Brazilian community the chorale will sing in Portuguese the Brazilian carol “O Anjo da Paz” (Angel of Peace). To prepare for the piece the chorale was coached by Mashpee tenor José Carneiro, who is originally from Brazil.
The chorale will also perform two Chanukah pieces, “Maoz Tzur” and “O Ir Kleyne Likhtelekh,” which will be sung in Hebrew and Yiddish.
One of the chorale’s constants for its holiday programming is its “Pop-Up Hallelujah!” where members of the audience are invited on stage to sing the beloved chorus from Handel’s “Messiah.” “We provide the music, and dedicated Handel fans even bring their own score,” Ms. Buckley said. Audiences are also invited to sing along on carols and other familiar seasonal songs.
Another tradition for the chorale’s holiday concert is offering the opportunity for guest “conductors,” one at each show. A silent auction is set up so the public can bid for the chance to guest conduct.
Tickets to the concert and a link to the silent auction can be found online.
First Church is at 136 Main Street in Sandwich. Concert times are December 10 at 7 PM and December 11 at 4 PM.
The Skylark Vocal Ensemble will repeat “A Christmas Carol,” its production from last year, which features text from the Charles Dickens classic interwoven with an original concert-length story score created by composer Benedict Sheehan.
Matthew Guard, Skylark’s artistic director, described the program as “a once-in-a-lifetime composition that deserves to take its place as an annual Christmas tradition, in the same way attending a play of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ or listening to the choir of King’s College’s ‘Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols’ is for many.”
The program will feature storyteller Sarah Walker reading the text. The music will be treated as an integral narrative element in the story and will include familiar carols and folk songs such as “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” “Deck The Halls” and “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen.”
Skylark will perform “A Christmas Carol” at the Lawrence School in Falmouth on December 14 at 7 PM. A pre-concert talk will take place at 6:15 PM. Tickets are available online.
As a matter of course, the best way for a musical work to become an ingrained tradition is through repetition and fans of this particular Skylark work who wish to hear it more than once are in luck, as the group released “A Christmas Carol” as a CD last year.
High on the list of musical holiday traditions for many on the Cape is the Cape Symphony’s annual holiday show.
ViVA Trio will perform as part of the Cape Symphony’s holiday performances December 2, 3 and 4 at the Barnstable Performing Arts Center.
“New spins on traditional classics” is how the Cape Symphony describes its “Holiday on the Cape” program. This year’s performances will feature guest appearances by the all-female vocal group ViVA Trio as well as the Chatham Chorale.
If watching “The Nutcracker” is part of your holiday routine, you might be able to kill two birds with one proverbial walnut as the Cape Symphony Dance Company will also join the symphony, performing scenes from the Tchaikovsky classic.
The program also includes Andrew Wainwright’s “A Joyful Noel”; Jerry Herman’s “We Need A Little Christmas,” from the musical “Mame”; Calvin Custer’s “Chanukah Festival Overture”; “Somewhere in my Memory” and “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas” from the movie “Home Alone” by composer John Williams; and the traditional hymns “Angels We Have Heard On High,” “Hark The Herald Angels Sing,” “O Holy Night” and others.
And while in recent years the symphony has increased the number of performances it offers with six shows at the Barnstable Performing Arts Center over the weekend of December 2 through 4, the program continues to sell out. Tickets are available through the Cape Symphony website or by calling the box office.
A multitude of traditions run through the annual performances of the Solstice Singers, a group that presents Renaissance and medieval music, as well as songs from other traditions, twice a year in spring and fall.
The group’s winter performances take place at the Woods Hole Community Hall and are under the musical direction of Lore DeBower. In addition to traditional songs that are performed annually, such as “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” and “Lord of the Dance,” the show features some familiar props that are as old as the group itself.
“One song that we traditionally sing is the ‘Boar’s Head Carol’ and we have a paper maché boar’s head that’s 30 years old” Ms. DeBower said. Created by the late Jim Mavor, the prop has been repaired, repainted, replastered and redecorated many times. There’s even a second boar’s head, this one skeletal remains, that makes an appearance after the traditional feast.
The Solstice Singers formed 30 years ago with a group of singers from Woods Hole who wanted to sing a cappella music, madrigals and other non-sacred compositions. The group now includes performers from as far afield as Middleborough and Plymouth.
“Truthfully most madrigals to the uninitiated just sound like Christmas carols because most of our carols are based on four-part harmony with repeated verses and refrains,” Ms. DeBower said.
Another tradition is the inclusion of a mummers’ play into the program, a performance that in itself has a traditional format. “There’s a classic structure of the forces of good and evil doing battle,” Ms. DeBower said. “Winter has to die in order for spring to be born.”
Transforming the Woods Hole Community Hall into a Renaissance Great Hall is another tradition audiences look forward to. “Part of the spectacle is what the hall looks like when people come in and sit down,” Ms. DeBower said. “It’s not just the stage, it’s the whole space.”
Ms. DeBower described the annual building of the program as a collective process of things that the group likes. “I always solicit their suggestions,” Ms. DeBower said. One strategy she employs is to keep traditional songs but to do different things with them in terms of presentation. “Giving a new twist to an old favorite is something the audience appreciates,” Ms. DeBower said.
Performing with the Solstice Singers will be the children’s choir, Les Infants du Soleil; sword dancers Vineyard Swordfish; and music group Ensemble Passacaglia.
The Solstice Singers’ “The Holly and the Ivy” will take place December 17 and 18 at the Woods Hole Community Hall. Performance times are December 17 at 4 and 7 PM and December 18 at 3 PM.