By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
“Joyous Sounds” will return for this holiday season.
The program, which began in 2017, features the University Choral Society, conducted by Mark Munson, and the Graduate Brass Quintet, coached by Andrew Pelletier, performing a mix of traditional and modern Christmas music. The programs are not just concerts of individual songs, but unified programs carefully constructed by Munson to evoke the joy and solemnity of Christmas. Listeners are asked not to applaud.
This year, “Joyous Sounds” will take the form of the traditional Nine Lessons and Carols as presented annually at King’s College in Cambridge, England.
“Joyous Sounds: A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” will be presented Tuesday, Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. in the First United Methodist Church, 1526 E. Wooster St., in Bowling Green. The concert is free. Masks are required.
The tradition of the festival dates back to 1918 when it was presented as a reaction to trauma of World War I.
The service alternates between a reading from the Bible followed by a complementary carol. While the Bowling Green performance will use the same readings as at King’s College, starting with Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden and concluding with opening lines of the Gospel of John, Munson has made his own selection of music.
This includes traditional carols “The First Noel” and “Angels We Have Heard on High,” as well as the congregational singing of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”
It also includes modern and contemporary pieces such as John Rutter’s “What Sweeter Music.”
The sixth lesson, Luke’s telling of the birth of Jesus, will be followed by the premiere performance of Munson’s own setting of “O Magnum Mysterium,” a poem about the oxen and donkey’s wonder at the Nativity.
The brass quintet will perform a prelude of traditional carols and a processional for the readers as well as a postlude.
The service will begin as is traditional with the singing of “Once in Royal David’s City.”
“Joyous Sounds,” Munson said, came after several years when the University Choral Society would sing Handel’s “Messiah” with the Toledo Symphony. Munson decided he wanted the choir, which now includes about three dozen singers who are a mix of university students, faculty, and staff and community members, to have a chance for a smaller more intimate winter performance.
Adding the brass quintet, which was also looking for another winter performance opportunity, seemed natural.
“Choirs and brass at Christmas just go together,” he said.
Using the sanctuary at First United Methodist is also a benefit. “We get different people in the audience than when we perform on campus.”
Munson has employed the church for a variety of performances including of a presentation of Bach’s St. John Passion and an Evensong service, another Anglican tradition.
