Greenwood Singers go Home for the Holidays

When the Greenwood Singers and the University of Alberta Faculty of Education Handbell Ringers blend their talents for the traditional Many Moods of Christmas concert, the evening is electric with powerful arrangements and action-packed ringing.

This year, Greenwood founder Robert de Frece has selected a repertoire that takes the choir back to its roots. Unlike most Yuletide concerts, this presentation on Monday, Dec. 12, is heavily accented with Christmas pops.

Back in 1999, the choir recorded Home for the Holidays, a 27-track album of favourite Christmas tunes expressing both the spirited and the sentimental.

“Most of our popular Christmas songs were written just after the war. It was a time of new hope and everyone was looking forward. You heard songs like Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow and Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” says de Frece.

“They were all written in a compressed period of time from about 1945 to about 1960. Without those pop carols, it just wouldn’t be Christmas today.”

Accompanying the 44-member choir, that includes St. Albert’s Linda Gibson and Morinville’s Laura Rankin, are four musicians: pianist Helen Stuart, organist Marnie Giesbrecht, bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer Murray Smith.

The concert opens with 15 ringers pealing and jingling bells throughout First Presbyterian Church, sounding the call of While By My Sheep. Immediately following, the Greenwood Singers join them for the 15th century Renaissance Nowell We Sing.

“It’s calm, introspective and very beautiful. We’ve never done a piece like this in early music.”

de Frece also couldn’t resist adding William Byrd’s Roate Caeli Desuper in part because of the composer’s style.

“There’s such transparency in the way he writes. Byrd has a way of writing that you can hear and see things. He has wonderful clarity.”

On the other hand, Morten Lauridsen’s more contemporary O Nata Lux (Born of Light) was copyrighted in 1997, but is as serene as the earlier Nowell We Sing.

“It kind of shimmers with these beautiful chords.”

One number that’s sure to put everyone in the spirit of the season is an arrangement of Go Tell it On the Mountain overlaid with Sergei Prokofiev’s Troika.

“It is fast. It is exciting.”

The Many Moods of Christmas is a seasonal offering with something for everyone.

“There are all sorts of things happening – different combinations of music, voices and instruments.”