Arizona Repertory Singers is dipping into the timeless sentiment of "Peace and Joy" for its 2025 holiday concert series beginning this weekend.
From traditional carols and standards to contemporary works, the choir's program of 16 choral works will touch on the theme of community that Music Director Ryan Phillips calls "the core of choral music."
"All those voices and parts coming together, and each time we perform, that community expands to include the audience and all the people they touch as well,” he said in a news release.
Arizona Repertory Singers Music Director Ryan Phillips will lead the ensemble in its annual holiday concerts Dec. 7, 13 and 14.
The concert includes American composer Dan Forrest's updated rendition of “Angels We Have Heard on High,” with the choir accompanied by string quartet. The new version "soars in unexpected directions, reinvigorating the carol many know from childhood," according to ARS program notes.
The choir also will perform English composer John Rutter's version of “Deck the Hall,” based on a lively 16th-century Welsh melody Rutter makes more powerful as it passes from section to section.
Phillips will slow things down with Eric Whitacre's “Lux Aurumque” set among bright cluster chords and shimmering harmonies; and longtime ARS Music Director Jeffry Jahn's arrangement of “Silent Night."
This will be Phillips' first time directing Jahn's version; Jahn died in 2015, and Phillips took the helm in 2019.
The program also dips into international works accompanied by djembe. The choir will sing “Baba Yetu,” a syncopated Swahili adaptation of the Lord’s Prayer by American composer Christopher Tin that snagged a Grammy in 2011 after it was featured in the "Civilization IV" video game; and “Hlohonolofatsa,” an invocation to "bless everything," sung in the South African language Sesotho. "Hlohonolofatsa" was arranged by the late conductor and Point Loma Nazarene University professor Daniel Jackson.
The singers also will perform the double-choir work “In Dulce Jubilo (In Sweet Rejoicing),” by German composer and organist Michael Praetorius; Rosephanye Powell's raw and rhythmic “The Word Was God”; and Christine Helferich Guter's jazzy arrangement of “Dreidel Song” that "spins along like the Hanukkah toy it playfully imitates," according to program notes.
Arizona Repertory Singers will perform its annual holiday concerts Dec. 7, 13 and 14.
Arizona Repertory Singers opens the holiday concert series with a 4 p.m. concert on Sunday, Dec. 7, at Oro Valley's St. Mark Catholic Church, 2727 W. Tangerine Road. On Dec. 13-14, they will perform at Christ Church United Methodist Church at 666 N. Craycroft Road. Tickets are $22 in advance at arsingers.org or $25 at the door; students get in free with ID.
"Ndikhokhele Bawo" – arr. Michael Barrett
The text of Ndikhokhele Bawo comes from Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” and is in the Xhosa language. This Bantu language falls into the category of Nguni languages, the same umbrella that contains Zulu; Xhosa is one of the most widely spoken languages in South Africa. Michael Barrett, Director of Choral Music Studies at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, sets this sacred text in a large-scale ‘ternary' form, ABA. A solo soprano voice brings in the choir with a serene sense of hope and wonder. The women join in with the same soloistic style and the men accompany them in widely voiced homophony. The piece continues to grow in dynamics with a celebratory declaration.
