Choral Society with brass, organ, and percussion gives voice to Yuletide’s ‘Joyous Sounds’

Members of the University Choral Society singing during Joyous Sounds in 2019.

The BGSU College of Musical Arts will present “Joyous Sounds: A Yuletide Celebration” an evening of traditional holiday music modern arrangements, Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. in the First United Methodist Church, 1526 E. Wooster St.

The concert features the University Choral Society, the Graduate Brass Quintet, organist Kevin McGill, and Collegiate Ringers.

The audience will also be asked to join in the singing of several of the carols.

The program was started by Mark Munson, the director of the Choral Society, in 2017. More than a concert of individual selections, “Joyous Sounds” present a unified program constructed by Munson to evoke the joy and solemnity of Christmas. Listeners are asked not to applaud.

The Choral Society will perform Benjamin Britten’s “A Boy Was Born” and “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy.”

Soprano Ann Corrigan will be the soloist on “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” arranged by John Rutter with the choir and organ.

The choir, brass, organ, and percussion will perform “Nowell Sing We” by Michael Trotta, “O “Come, All Ye Faithful,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “Go, Tell It on the Mountain”  and “Let All Mortal Flesh.”

The brass quintet will perform a chorale from J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as well as two suites of traditional carols and the 16th Spanish tune “Riu, Riu, Chiu.”

The Collegiate Ringers will present “Good Christian Friends Rejoice” and “O Come, Little Children.”

McGill will perform “Pat-a-Pan” solo.

Mark Munson directs the University Choral Society and coaches the Collegiate Ringers. Andrew Pelletier coaches the Graduate Brass Quintet.

The University Choral Society consists of university students, faculty and staff members, and singers from the greater northwest Ohio community. Members regularly perform great choral/orchestral masterworks with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the Bowling Green Philharmonia.