Monday, December 2, 2019
North Idaho College will present its “Sounds of Christmas” concert in Boswell Hall Schuler Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8.
The annual concert will feature performances by the NIC Wind Symphony, NIC Cardinal Chorale, and NIC Chamber Singers.
This year, the Cardinal Chorale conducted by Max Mendez will present five musical works including some traditional and fun modern works for choir and piano.
“You’ll hear the songs you are used to hearing like ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ and ‘Silent Night,’ but you will also hear Nathan Howe’s ‘I Want to Stare at My Phone with You (A Millennial Holiday Song),’” Mendez said.
The NIC Chamber Singers will perform traditional favorites like “Ding Dong Merrily on High” and “Good King Wenceslas,” but you will also hear selections from 20th-century composer Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, written in 1942 while Britten was at sea, travelling from the United States to England.
The NIC Wind Symphony, conducted by Bryan Hannaford, will close out the annual Sounds of Christmas concert with modern twists on Holiday Classics. The audience can look forward to hearing “Sparkling Lights,” by Matt Conaway and “Minor Alterations No. 2: Carols from the Dark Side,” by Dave Lovrien.
“'Minor Alterations' takes familiar holiday melodies and twists them, distorts them, transposes them from major and finally sets them in the styles of famous minor-keyed orchestral pieces,” Hannaford said. “I’m hoping the audience enjoys hearing ‘O Holy Night’ set against Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’ It will be like a Christmas stocking full of very dark chocolate.”
The concert will conclude with the popular “Holiday Sing-Along,” arranged by local composer Tom Tucker and performed by the NIC Wind Symphony and NIC Choral Union.