BY CAITLIN LEIKER<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 36th annual Christmas Cathedral Concert will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday in the Basilica of St. Fidelis in Victoria. The event is free to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Choirs will include the Fort Hays Singers, Concert Choir, Smoky Hill Chorale, the Hays High School Chamber Singers, and TMP-Marian\u2019s Pop Singers. Hays Symphony Orchestra will join the Brass Choir and various faculty soloists in the instrumental lineup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Audiences can expect to hear Gregorian chant, traditional religious carols, arrangements of modern Christmas music, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Cathedral Concerts have proven to be one of the region\u2019s most popular events during the holiday season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are people that come an hour and half early just so they get a good seat,\u201d FHSU Choir Director Terry Crull said. \u201cBut anywhere you sit, it sounds marvelous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traditionally, choirs are arranged in groups of similar voice parts. However, Crull\u2019s favorite moments from past concerts were when the voice parts were mixed, and everyone formed a giant circle around the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When they sang facing the center, the voice parts blended cleanly throughout the echoing cathedral. Crull said that this arrangement will be used again this year for different pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI always liked singing those when I was in choir,\u201d Crull said. \u201cIt puts you on the spot as a singer. You\u2019re right there in front of two or three people\u2026for the audience, it\u2019s fun to hear that one voice isolated in one ear, but you can also hear the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hays Symphony conductor Brian Buckstead selected Ancient Airs and Dances Suite No. 1<\/em>, a four-movement piece by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. It was written in 1917, based on Renaissance-era (16th century) Italian lute music that had been rediscovered some years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Buckstead said the piece brilliantly reorchestrates and modernizes the original lute pieces for a chamber orchestra\u2013 small groups of woodwind, brass, and string instruments. He believes that the solo harpsichord \u201cadds just the right amount of magic to the sound.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis reworking of older music would become a common theme among many so-called \u2018neoclassical\u2019 composers in the first half of the 20th century,\u201d Buckstead said. \u201cAncient Airs and Dances<\/em> beautifully captures the spirit\u2013both jocular and melancholy\u2013of the season.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n With 36 running years of the Cathedral Concert, conductors continue to reflect on its heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt tells me that this is a concert that works year after year for everyone involved, including students, faculty, guests, and of course the audience,\u201d Buckstead said. \u201cThe combined efforts of the singers and instrumentalists in putting this together, as well as the wonderful variety of music on display, is hard to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexandra Rome, director of TMP-Marian\u2019s Pop Singers, also spoke about the tradition of the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo have a tradition that has continued for so many years speaks to the community that keeps it going,\u201d Rome said. \u201cI cannot count how many times I have heard different people say, \u2018It’s not the Christmas season until we experience the Cathedral Concert. Then I’m truly in the spirit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is Rome\u2019s fourth year conducting the Pop Singers. While she herself has performed in an estimated 10 Christmas Cathedral Concerts, this will be her first year leading the Pop Singers in the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis year’s songs were chosen based on a couple things: stretching the singers’ [voices] and challenging them to build even stronger musical skills, but also with the focus on light and joy\u2013something that is so needed in our world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rome described the high school students\u2019 sets as \u201ca diverse journey of repertoire between the Pop Singers and the Chamber Singers,\u201d both in their chosen composers and featured instrumentalists. <\/strong>The two groups will also come together for an a capella piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rome hopes that audience members can \u201cescape everyday worries and stresses, and they can enter the holiday season with a little more light in their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you were to take into account how many diverse walks of life sit in the pews, it demonstrates that music is one of the most unifying ways that human beings can express themselves,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Cathedral Concert is vital for bringing us together to enjoy the beauty of the space and sound that uplifts, inspires, gives release, and empowers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY CAITLIN LEIKER The 36th annual Christmas Cathedral Concert will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday in the Basilica of St. Fidelis in Victoria.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":69942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3397,3398,3400,3402,11],"tags":[14747,4181,287,10833,2227,410,286,9122],"class_list":["post-69941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-fhsu-music-arts-entertainment","category-area-music","category-news","tag-caitlin-leiker","tag-cathedral-concert","tag-concert","tag-fhsu-choir","tag-fhsu-music","tag-hays-symphony-orchestra","tag-music","tag-st-fidelis-basilica"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/St.-Fidelis-Cathedral-of-the-Plains.jpg?fit=1737%2C975&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69943,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69941\/revisions\/69943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}