Cornell College Holiday Concert Dec. 6

MOUNT VERNON – John Rutter’s “Gloria” is the featured work at the annual Cornell College Holiday Concert on Saturday, Dec. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in King Chapel. “Gloria,” an internationally popular seasonal concert work, features the 70-voice Cornell Concert Choir conducted by associate professor of music Lisa Hearne, and includes an eight-piece brass ensemble, percussion, and college organist Lynda Hakken.

Admission to the Holiday Concert is free and open to the public.

The brass ensemble will also join the choir for Giovanni Gabrieli’s double-choir anthem “Come Let Us Sing,” composed for St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.

Concert Choir will perform two versions of the Russian hymn “Bogoroditse Djevo,” one by Sergei Rachmaninoff, the other by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Another carol, “In the bleak mid-winter,” features soloists Matt Roberts, senior from Dunlap, Iowa, and Lindsay Robinson, sophomore from Centennial, Colo.

The 24-voice Chamber Singers will open the program with a set that includes a “There Will Be Rest,” a 1999 piece on the poetry of Sara Teasdale, composed by Frank Ticheli; “Walk a Mile,” a gospel waltz by Pepper Choplin; and “A Spotless Rose,” by Herbert Howells, featuring baritone Matt Roberts as soloist.

Chamber Singers will be joined by organist Lynda Hakken, violinists Dali Cao and Keith Ellington, and cellist Anna Yeagle for Telemann’s “Laudate Jehovam, omnes gentes,” a concert work of the late Baroque era.