Stockbridge — Cross your fingers and hope for clear weather on the night of December 10. Because that’s when digital artist Joe Wheaton will accompany Christine Gevert’s Crescendo Chorus with an outdoor light show inspired by the choir’s live performance inside the historic St. Paul’s church (immediately across the street from the Red Lion Inn).
Mr. Wheaton’s photonic exhibition will make for what Crescendo’s publicity materials refer to as “kaleidoscope-like joyous illumination.” We are free to speculate about what that might look like, but joyous light pairs well with angelic proclamations, and we are told it will include a video feed of the live performance inside St. Paul’s church. The outdoor light show will be free to all peasants, kings, and passers-by, thanks to donations from anonymous residents of Stockbridge. But it won’t happen if the weather outside is frightful.
A show out of doors? But where’s the hot chocolate?
You’ll find it at a pop-up, hot-food-and-beverage service located just outside the Red Lion Inn.
Inside St. Paul’s church, the Crescendo Chorus and soloists will join musicians of the Berkshire Brass: Peter Bellino and Brian Kanner, trumpets; and David Wampler and William Carr, trombones. Crescendo Artistic Director Christine Gevert will conduct from the organ.
That’s the scene on December 10 in Stockbridge. On December 11, Crescendo will repeat the entire program (sans the light show) at Trinity Church in Lakeville, Conn.
The program for both nights is “Resonet In Laudibus — Resounding Joyful Praises” and consists of works from Italian and German Renaissance and Baroque composers. Ms. Gevert writes that this program is “all about music on which some of today’s beloved Christmas carols are based.”
And she gives examples: The medieval “In dulci jubilo” (sweet rejoicing), “Resonet in laudibus” (Resounding joyful praises), and “Puer natus in Bethlehem” (a child is born in Bethlehem) form the basis of melodies popular today.
If you want to hear expressions of the purest joy, you needn’t look further than the music of J. S. Bach. Chorales from his Christmas Oratorio will highlight the evening. (e.g., “Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe”)
The Venetian late-Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli’s serene eight-voice motet “O magnum mysterium” contrasts nicely with the exuberance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Gabrieli was known for his use of large forces positioned in multiple, spatially separated groups of singers, and, although the Crescendo chorus may not have room to spread out in groups, they do have the ability to show you what an “echo choir” sounds like.
Just as we would have it, the Berkshire Brass will take the spotlight between choir tunes, performing interludes and fanfares for brass and organ from composers Michael Praetorius, Jacob Handl, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Johann Hermann Schein, Giovanni Bassano, and others.
Hear the Crescendo Chorus with the Berkshire Brass perform on December 10 at St. Paul’s church in Stockbridge or on December 11 at Trinity Church in Lakeville, Conn. Purchase tickets here.
