The Dessoff Choirs ushers in the winter solstice with a rare performance of Margaret Bonds’ The Ballad of the Brown King, a holiday cantata focusing on Balthazar of the Three Kings. The text was written by Langston Hughes and the entire work was written in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. The concert begins with traditional holiday motets and a work by Michael T. Roberts using Whitman texts. The concert will conclude with Silent Night by candlelight and the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah.
Pre-concert talk – 6:45 pm
Margaret Bonds and the Ballad of the Brown King
Dr. Ashley Jackson
| Spaseniye sodelal | Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944) |
| Carol: O come all ye faithful | John Francis Wade (1711-1786) |
| Arr. David Willcocks (b. 1919-2015) | |
| Ave Maria | Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) |
| To Soar in Freedom and in Fullness of Power | Michael T. Roberts (b. 1978) |
| Carol: Hark the herald angels sing | Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) |
| arr. Daniel Fortune and Malcolm J. Merriweather | |
| The Ballad of the Brown King | Margaret Bonds (1913-1972) |
| Carol: Silent Night | Franz Xaver Gruber (1787-1863) |
| Hallelujah from Messiah | George Friderick Handel (1685-1759) |