NVCC & Yale Choirs To Present ‘Winter Convergence’

WATERBURY — The Naugatuck Valley Community College Choir and the St Thomas More Chapel Choir, with orchestra, will present “A Winter Convergence Concert,” glorious music evoking light converging with the darkest nights of the year, under the direction of Richard Gard.

Performances will take place Friday, December 10, at 8 pm, at Yale University Battell Chapel, at the corner of Elm and College streets in New Haven, and Sunday, December 12, at 3 pm, at NVCC’s Fine Arts Center Mainstage, 750 Chase Parkway in Waterbury.

Admission is free; donations will be accepted at the door.

The concert will begin with La Notte (The Night), a flute concerto in G minor with orchestra, composed by Antonio Vivaldi and featuring NVCC professor Antonio Biello as flute soloist, followed by Vivaldi’s Gloria for chorus, soloists and orchestra.

The second half of the concert offers three a cappella works: Maoz Tsur, a chorus celebrating Hanukkah sung in Hebrew and English; “Christ Was Born on Christmas Day,” a traditional German carol melody sung with English and Latin lyrics; and Convergence by Neely Bruce, a professor of music at Wesleyan University. This work merges New England Protestant fuging tunes from 1794 with work songs collected from freed slaves following the Civil War.

The last selection of the concert will offer an abridged version of the Christmas story with some of the most popular sections of the oratorio Messiah, by George Handel.

For more information, call 203-575-8039.