Candlelight Concert: For the 49th time

For the 49th year, choral singers in the School of Music will delight and warm audiences with the joyous music of the season.

The Wichita State University Choral Department’s 49th Annual Candlelight Concert will be at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4, and 7:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5, in Wiedemann Recital Hall. Tickets are $7; students $3 with other discounts available.

Please note: The Sunday concert crowd will compete for parking with Shocker fans attending the basketball game, so the School of Music has reserved 100 spaces in Lot 16S, just south of Duerksen Fine Arts Center. Patrons should enter from Circle Drive south of DFAC.

The concert will feature the WSU A Cappella Choir, Women's Choir, Concert Chorale and Madrigal Singers, directed by Tom Wine and John Paul Johnson.

Highlighting this year’s program the A Cappella Choir and Madrigal Singers are combining to present Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.”

The program also includes students from the WSU brass and percussion studios in several selections with the choirs.

The concert will open with the traditional “Personent Hodie” that fills Wiedemann Hall in surround sound with voices, brass and percussion in what has become a true holiday tradition.

Concert Chorale, under the direction of Johnson, is preparing some exciting contemporary choral selections: “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day,” arranged by Howard Helvey, and the haunting “Lux Aurumque” by Eric Whitacre. The Women’s Choir, or Las Voces Dulces, will bring forth the traditional carol, “Petit Enfant,” arranged by Linda Miller, as well as the brand-new “Cantate” by Wichita composer John Leavitt.

The Madrigal Singers will cross the globe finding music of the season including “Christmas in the Straw” with a rousing fiddle player, “I Saw Three Ships” as performed on the Celtic Christmas series, and a vocal jazz arrangement of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”

For information, contact the College of Fine Arts Box Office at (316) 978-3233 or go to www.wichita.edu/fineartsboxoffice.