Long Beach Camerata Singers to Bring Back the Catalyst Chamber Ensemble for CATALYST CANDLELIGHT CHRISTMAS

Long Beach Camerata Singers brings back the Catalyst Chamber Ensemble for an a capella concert of traditional Christmas carols with its “Catalyst Candlelight Christmas” concert on Wednesday, November 29.  The concert will be presented at Los Altos United Methodist Church, located at 5950 Willow Street, Long Beach, beginning at 7:30pm.  
 
This year's Catalyst Candlelight Christmas kicks off a new opportunity for concert goers in the Long Beach area, giving them access to holiday choral music in the tradition of Grammy-award winning chamber choirs such as Seraphic Fire, Conspirare and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale.  The all-professional group is comprised of 14 singers with a wide array of musical backgrounds, including music educators, voice faculty, and performers in other highly accomplished Southern California ensembles.  
 
The concert, which will be approximately 80 minutes in length, will create a mood of reverence and hush from the very beginning, with the use of 100 candles (electric of course) placed all around the church.  At different times during the concert the chorus will process into the audience to surround them with their voices.
  Featured Repertoire: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree by Elizabeth Posten (1905-1987):  Historians believe the poem was written and first set to music in the late 1700's in England.  The lyrics are based on Song of Solomon 2:3, as well as referring to the large number of apple orchards in England at that time.
                                  “The tree of life my soul hath seen
                                    Laden with fruit and always green,
                                    The trees of nature fruitless be 
                                    Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.”
 
At the end of the piece, the arrangement takes the form of a canon, or round, giving the listener a sense of bells tolling and birds singing.
 
Gitanjali Chants by Craig Hella Johnson (b .1962):  “Gitanjali” is Bengali for “song offering” and is a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore, written in 1910 and later translated into English by the author.  The poems were based on medieval Indian lyrics of devotion with a common theme of love across most poems.  In this piece, Craig Hella Johnson, composer of “Considering Matthew Shepard,” again demonstrates his brilliance and versatility by setting the lyrics to a Gregorian-style chant.  
 
Once, As I Remember  Trad. Italian, arr. Charles Wood (1866-1926):  Wood, of Irish descent, was an Anglican church composer, and his arrangement has the satisfying appeal of the best of Anglican hymns.  Taken from an Italian collection published in 1689, the English lyrics were written by G. R. Woodward.

Additional selections that will be performed during the event include Adeste Fideles/ O Come All Ye Faithful, Away in a Manger, Carol of the Bells, and much more!

Tickets are available online at www.LBCamerata.org and are $40, $55 and $65 each (ticketing fees apply).  Group tickets are available for groups of 10 or more at $30 each, including fees, and may be obtained by contacting Camerata's box office at 562-900-2863
  

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