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2.12.03

Christmas Concert this Friday, December 5

Choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate ConceptionIf you will be in the Washington area this Friday, please come to the annual Christmas Concert for Charity, which will feature the Choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (directed by Dr. Peter Latona, with yours truly in the tenor section) and the orchestra and choirs of The Catholic University of America (directed by Profs. Kate Tamarkin and Leo Nestor). The concert, beginning at 8 pm in the Great Upper Church of the National Shrine (at 4th Street and Michigan Avenue NE), is free: a collection is taken every year for the benefit of a selected charity. This year the donation will be given to St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home, the first foundling home in the nation's capital although it is now located in Hyattsville, Md. In 1860, nuns from the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul came to Washington to found St. Ann's and received a charter from President Abraham Lincoln through an Act of Congress in 1863 to take care of abandoned children and pregnant women. The work of the Sisters of Charity, I assure you, has been and continues to be a most noble and worthy one.

Our program will feature the following works: What Sweeter Music by Michael Fink (text from A Christmas Caroll, sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall by Robert Herrick), Five Carols (1967) by Richard Rodney Bennett, Beata es virgo Maria (à 12) by Vincenzo Ugolini (see my post on July 25), Ave Maria by Henri Mulet, Behold a Mystical Rose by Peter Latona, Ave Maria by Bach-Gounod and arranged by Colin Mawby, Away in a Manger arranged by Peter Latona, Lullay, Litel Child (1969) by Karl Korte, and Methinks I See an Heavenly Host (Shiloh) by William Billings. Several of these pieces will be accompanied by harp and are from our new recording, Carols at the Crèche, which will also be available this weekend.

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