Upcoming 2009 Concerts

Past Concerts

What: St. Cecilia Chamber Choir Halloween Benefit Concert
Where: Waldo Theatre, Waldoboro
When: Saturday, October, 24th, 7:00 p.m.
Contact: Director Linda Blanchard, 380-2768
Websites: ceciliachoir.org and thewaldo.org


St. Cecilia Chamber Choir presents “Vile Voices and Musical Mayhem”, a Halloween concert to benefit Waldo Theatre on Saturday, October 24th, 7:00 p.m., at the Waldo Theatre in Waldoboro.  As a special treat, we’ll also feature kids from the Waldo Youth Theatre.  Advance tickets are available at Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta and from the Waldo Theatre website, www.thewaldo.org.  Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door; students are admitted free of charge.

The spooky and eclectic program includes everything from opera to doo-wop, Gregorian chants for the dead, music from The Phantom of the Opera and Harry Potter, a cowboy ballad, Tom Lehrer songs, and more.  All this combined with special lighting, sound effects, and Sean Fleming at the keyboard will make for a fun and creepy musical evening not to be missed. Come in costume, and bring friends!

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 25-voice auditioned ensemble with members from Rockland to New Gloucester. Our mission is to present outstanding performances of the very best choral repertoire, to provide challenging musical opportunities to gifted local youth, to support our community with outreach programs, and to support Maine composers through the commission and performance of new music. Our student members are Sam and Harry Mason of Alna and Thai Lien Parsons of Damariscotta. The Choir is directed by Linda Blanchard and accompanied by Sean Fleming, who have led the group since its inception. For further information about upcoming concerts and auditions, visit the St. Cecilia website www.ceciliachoir.org or contact director Linda Blanchard at 380-2768. 

On Sunday, the third of May at 4 PM, the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir and the Tapestry Singers will join forces to present a program of baroque music.  The selections will include Johann Sebastian Bach’s motet for double chorus, Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf, Bach’s Cantata 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, and George Frideric Handel’s Chandos Anthem number 11, Let God Arise.  Featured soloists will include soprano Nicola Lugosch, mezzo sopranos Linda Blanchard and Amy Lalime, tenor Douglas Barley, and bass-baritone John David Adams.  The joint choruses will be led by their directors, Linda Blanchard and Harold Falconer.  Choral accompanist Sean Fleming will play the harpsichord and be joined by a nine- piece baroque orchestra.

Bach wrote the motet in October of 1729 for the funeral of a colleague.  Nevertheless, the music is joyful, almost dance-like, lively in character and optimistic in tone.  It begins with the two choruses singing more or less in tandem.  As the music progresses, they gradually meld together into an exciting fugue and end with a gentle chorale.

The cantata, one of Bach’s most popular, may sound familiar to many as it uses the hymn tune, Wake, awake, for night is flying.  The tune is heard several times throughout the work, accompanied by the magnificent counterpoint for which Bach is so famous.  Instruments weave around voices, and voices around other voices.

Handel’s anthem Let God Arise is as typical of Handel as the other two selections are of Bach.  It was a youthful composition, written in 1728 for one of his most important patrons, the 3rd Earl of Burlington.  It is filled with florid solos and scintillating choruses, anticipating some of Handel’s famous later works, including the well-loved Messiah.

The program will be presented at St. Patrick’s Church on Academy Hill Road in Newcastle at 4 PM on Sunday, May 3rd.  Tickets are $12 at the door or $10 in advance and may be purchased from chorus members or at the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta.  Students are admitted for free.

 For further information contact: Steve Ward at 563-8191
 or Harold Falconer at 644-1174.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir presents Sing for Spring, a mixed bouquet of short choral works, on Saturday, April 4 at 7:30 PM and Sunday, April 5 at 3 pm at St. Andrew’s Church, Newcastle.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir will present 21 delightful songs at its concerts in Newcastle’s St. Andrew’s Church on April 4 and 5 to get everyone in the mood for Spring, the wakening flowers, and renewed love. Five Renaissance composers that are known both for beautiful religious music and their madrigals are well-represented, including Josquin des Prez, Orlando Gibbons and Tomas De Vittoria. Giovanni Gabrieli’s piece for a double chorus, Lieto Godea, will also be presented where the two choirs call back and forth to one another singing of warm April breezes and the sorrow of unrequited love.

There will also be songs from several 19th and early 20th century composers, including Alexander Gretchaninov, whose works are not often heard, but who wrote glorious music in the Russian liturgical tradition. The choir will present Gretchaninov’s Cherubim Song, a wondrous musical work with eight different choral voices moving in harmony with one another. St. Cecilia Choir will perform works by Gabriel Faure, Edward Elgar, and Camille Saint-Saens, plus some charming adaptations of folk songs, Mairi’s Wedding and Scarborough Fair among them. The songs range from praise to the Virgin Mary to songs evocative of spring flowers, of summer moonlight, lost loves, and Silver Swans. All of the songs are beautiful and accessible and, although several are in foreign languages, translations will be provided.

The choir will present this program twice, both times at St. Andrews Church in Newcastle.  Times are Saturday, April 4 at 7:30 PM and Sunday, April 5 at 3 pm. Tickets are $12 at the door, $10 in advance with students admitted free. Tickets are available at the Maine Coast Book Shop and Café in Damariscotta.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 39-voice, auditioned choir that has been led since 1995 by Linda Blanchard of Damariscotta, with accompaniment by Sean Fleming. Choir members come from all over the mid-coast area to sing under Ms. Blanchard’s direction. Blanchard and Fleming also serve as director and organist/accompanist of the Sheepscot Valley Singers and the choirs of St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle.

Do not miss this special musical event. Celebrate winter’s end and seasonal rebirth with St. Cecilia Chamber Choir. For further information, contact Steve Ward at 563-8191.

ST. CECILIA CHAMBER CHOIR PRESENTS
CHRISTMAS LESSONS AND CAROLS CONCERTS

                
On Friday and Saturday, December 12 and 13, 2008, the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir will give three performances of a "Ceremony of Lessons and Carols" in Newcastle and Brunswick, as it has each Christmas season since 1995.  Modeled on the Christmas Eve tradition of Kings College in Cambridge, England, the program alternates readings of poetry, sacred works, and seasonal entertainments with music of Advent and Christmas.
The choir will present its “Ceremony of Lessons and Carols” at the Second Congregational Church in Newcastle on Friday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m. and twice on Saturday, December 13, at 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Bowdoin College Chapel in Brunswick.  Both concert venues provide marvelous acoustics for appreciating the St. Cecilia Choir’s musicianship.  

Works by Ord, Francis, Ferko, Susa, Pärt, Locklair, Vaughan Williams, Ives, and others will be featured, and familar carols for audience participation will be sung.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 34-voice auditioned ensemble with members from New Gloucester to Northport. Their mission is to present outstanding performances of the very best choral repertoire; to provide challenging musical opportunities to gifted local youth (tenor Sam Mason, a home-schooled 9th grader from Alna, is in his fourth year in the Choir and is the third member of his family to sing with St. Cecilia); support the community with outreach programs; and to support Maine composers through the commission and performance of new music. The Choir is directed by Linda Blanchard and accompanied by Sean Fleming, who jointly have led the group since its inception and also serve together as director and accompanist for the Sheepscot Valley Chorus. Blanchard is Director of Choirs and Fleming is Organist at St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle. For further information about upcoming concerts and auditions for the next semester, visit the St. Cecilia website www.ceciliachoir.org or contact director Linda Blanchard at 563-2754. 

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir to Present
Eight Choral Works at Spring Concerts, April 11 and 12, 2008

   The St. Cecilia Chamber Choir will present three choral masterworks at its Spring concerts on April 11 and 12, along with five smaller -- but delightful -- pieces.
   Two of the major works are based on celebrated poetry. English poet W. H. Auden provided the lyrics for “The Twelve” composed in 2000 by local composer Richard Francis, with a powerful evocation of the lives of the twelve apostles and their legacy. English composer Benjamin Britten based his 1943 work “Rejoice in the Lamb” on the poetry of Christopher Smart, an 18th century mystic and street preacher who celebrated the “divine architecture of the natural world”, including his cat Jeoffrey. Together, both works demonstrate the range and versatility of the English choral tradition.
   The third major piece is Herbert Howell’s “Te Deum”. Composed for Christ College, Cambridge in 1944, Howell’s work is a stirring celebration of faith. The choir will also perform a 1962 piece by American composer Ned Rorem, a setting of the 23rd Psalm by Keith Francis (father of “The Twelve” composer, Richard Francis), “God is Gone Up” by English composer Gerald Finzi, Edward Bairstow’s 1925 a cappella piece “I Sat Down Under His Shadow” and “Draw Us in The Spirit’s Tether” by Harold W. Friedell.
     The choir will present this program twice, at 7:30 PM on Friday April 11 at the Second Congregational Church in Newcastle and at 7:30 PM on Saturday April 12 at Bowdoin College Chapel in Brunswick. Tickets are $15 at the door, $10 in advance with students under 18 admitted free. Tickets are available at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick and at Maine Coast Book Shop and CafÈ in Damariscotta.
    The St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 33-voice, auditioned choir that has been led since 1995 by Linda Blanchard of Damariscotta, with organ accompaniment by Sean Fleming. Much of the music at the April concerts will be noteworthy for Fleming’s treatment of powerful organ passages, particularly Finzi’s “God is Gone Up’ and Richard Francis’ “The Twelve”. Alto Nan White and Baritone Stephen White also will contribute solos in Britten’s “Rejoice in the Lamb”.
    Choir members come from locations as distant as New Gloucester and Northport to sing under Ms. Blanchard’s direction. Blanchard and Fleming also serve as director and organist/accompanist of the Sheepscot Valley Singers and the choirs of St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle.
    Do not miss this special musical event – the Choir’s April 11 and 12 Spring concerts. Celebrate winter’s end and seasonal rebirth with the musicianship and skill of the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir.For further information contact, Steve Ward at 563 8191

ST. CECILIA CHAMBER CHOIR PRESENTS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
St. Cecilia Chamber Choir Presents “Steeple Fund” Benefit Concert January 26

   On Saturday January 26 at 7:30 PM the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir will perform a varied program of traditional Scottish and American music in a benefit for the Damariscotta Baptist Church Steeple Fund. The benefit concert will take place at the church and will be the latest in a series of efforts to raise funds for the renovation of the Damariscotta Baptist Church’s historic steeple and clock tower.
  
   The concert will consist of hymns and folksongs of Scotland and America, including four Robert Burns ballads that are well-known to lovers of Scottish music, four traditional songs from Appalachia and the American South, three pieces associated with the Scottish highlands (including two versions of “Amazing Grace”) and four arrangements by Aaron Copland of American folksongs and spirituals. Soloists for the January 26 concert include baritone Stephen White and tenor John Ward.

   Don’t miss this extraordinary benefit concert and the musicianship of the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir. A 34-voice auditioned choir with members drawn from Northport to New Gloucester, the Choir is directed by Linda Blanchard with piano and organ accompaniment by Sean Fleming. Blanchard and Fleming serve as choirs director and organist, respectively, at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Newcastle, the Sheepscot Valley Chorus and numerous other musical ventures in the mid-coast area.

   The January 26 benefit will consist of one performance at 7:30 with admission at the door for $15 to benefit the Steeple Fund. Students and children will be admitted at no charge. This is the latest in a series of performances by the St. Cecilia Choir to benefit  community institutions each year. Previous concert proceeds have gone to assist the Skidompha Library in Damariscotta, historic St. John’s Church in Dresden, Round Top Center for the Arts, The Leadership School at Kieve and the Old German Church in Waldoboro.

   For further information see the Choir’s website at www.ceciliachoir.org or call the Damariscotta Baptist Church at 563 3587. 

ST. CECILIA CHAMBER CHOIR PRESENTS
CHRISTMAS LESSONS AND CAROLS CONCERT

On Friday and Saturday, December 14 and 15, 2007, the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir will give three performances of a "Ceremony of Lessons and Carols" in Newcastle and Brunswick, as it has each Christmas season since 1995.  Modeled on the Christmas Eve tradition of Kings College in Cambridge, England, the program alternates readings of poetry, sacred works, and seasonal entertainments with music of Advent and Christmas.
The choir will present its “Ceremony of Lessons and Carols” at the Second Congregational Church in Newcastle on Friday, December 14 at 7:30 p.m. and twice on Saturday, December 15, at 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Bowdoin College Chapel in Brunswick.  Both concert venues provide marvelous acoustics for appreciating the St. Cecilia Choir’s musicianship.
The 2007 Ceremony of Lessons and Carols will premier a commission of a new Magnificat by local composer and St. Cecilia Choir member Richard Francis.
“My inspiration is the text of the Magnificat, and I try to amplify the meaning with word painting,” said Francis. “I write by instinct, and so many musical ideas want to come out--it’s hard to choose!” His setting is in the English choral tradition, with a substantial organ interlude that will showcase accompanist Sean Fleming’s talent. Francis (b. 1969) received his bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College and his Masters from the University of Michigan. A resident of Damariscotta, he is a freelance 'cellist and recording engineer and teaches privately, in addition to his work as a composer. Other commissions have come from the Portland Choral Arts Society, Bangor Symphony, the American Guild of Organists and Bowdoin College.

The St. Cecilia concert will also include such works as the chant-like “God Is With Us” by John Tavener, a John Rutter piece called “There Is a Flower”, Judith Weir’s haunting “Illuminare, Jerusalem”, and a rousing “Welcome, Yule!” by  Sir C. Hubert Parry. The audience will be invited to join in the singing of several traditional carols, including the classic David Willcocks setting of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”   The concert concludes by candlelight, as the Christmas Children, Lindsey Merritt and Eli Diaute, both students at Great Salt Bay School, and Carli Jo Storms, a student at Bristol Consolidated Schools, sing alone the first verse of “Silent Night,” then lead the Choir in a candlelight recessional.

Featured soloists, all members of St. Cecilia Choir, are Janet Booth, Sandra Francis, Richard Francis, Wendy Love, Del Merritt, Jackie Merritt, Ruth Monsell, Chrisso Rheault, Susan Russell and Stephen White.
Tickets for adults are $12 at the door, or $10 in advance; students are admitted for free.  Tickets are available at Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta and the Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 34-voice auditioned ensemble with members from New Gloucester to Northport. Their mission is to present outstanding performances of the very best choral repertoire; to provide challenging musical opportunities to gifted local youth (tenor Sam Mason, a home-schooled 9th grader from Alna, is in his third year in the Choir and is the third member of his family to sing with St. Cecilia); support the community with outreach programs; and to support Maine composers through the commission and performance of new music. The Choir is directed by Linda Blanchard and accompanied by Sean Fleming, who jointly have led the group since its inception and also serve together as director and accompanist for the Sheepscot Valley Chorus. Blanchard is Director of Choirs and Fleming is Organist at St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle. For further information about upcoming concerts and auditions for the next semester, visit the St. Cecilia website www.ceciliachoir.org or contact director Linda Blanchard at 563-2754. 

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir Presentation of the Requiem of Tomas Luis De Victoria and the Requiem of Maurice Durufle – May 19 and 20, 2007

   Southern Maine music-lovers will have a choice between two wonderful settings for hearing the St Cecilia Chamber Choir’s presentation of the “Requiem” of Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis De Victoria and the 20th century “Requiem” of Maurice Durufle. On May 19 at 7:30 PM, the Chamber Choir presents the two choral requiems at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke on State Street in Portland – a wonderful, echoing stone environment for choral harmony. The following afternoon, on May 20 at 4:00 PM, the setting will be Boothbay Harbor’s white-clapboarded Congregational Church on Route 27 with an acoustic composed of 19th century wood and plaster, Both venues will set off these glorious pieces to maximum advantage.
     The pair of requiems present styles that are both complementary and contrasting.  Victoria’s version of the latin mass for the dead dates from 1605 and was the final piece  Victoria composed before his own death five years later. The piece is accompanied only with organ doubling the bass section but otherwise consists of six-part a capella harmonies that follow introductory plainchant for each section of the mass. Opening with a serene “Requiem Aeternam” section,  Victoria moves to the “Kyrie” and on to a sequence of passionate, angry and joyous emotions. His “Requiem” is at times lush and muscular and at others ethereal and tender. It is an extraordinary and moving composition.
   Durufle’s “Requiem” presents a different and distinctly modern aesthetic. Maurice Durufle held the position of organist at St. Etienne-du-Mont in Paris throughout his career, until his death in 1986. His most celebrated work, the “Requiem”, dates from 1947. In the aftermath of world war and political turmoil in Europe, Durufle’s version is surprisingly full of affirmation and hope. The organ accompaniment is full of energy and rhythm and sets off the choral harmonies that often are doubled or in unison. Interestingly, the same Gregorian plainsong that figures prominently in the Victoria “Requiem” recurs and is echoed in the Durufle. In this sense, the two pieces have a strong kinship despite their differing styles and the 350 year gap that separates their dates of composition.
   Come hear these two moving and glorious compositions on the 19th and 20th of May. Tickets for the Boothbay Harbor concert on May 20 are $12 in advance and $10 at the door with youth age 18 or under admitted free. Admission for the Portland concert at St. Luke’s Cathedral on Saturday May 19 is a $10 donation for adults and $5 for youth. Advance tickets are available at Gulf of Maine Bookstore in Brunswick and the Maine Coast Bookshop and Café in Damariscotta or by calling 563 2654 or by accessing the Choir’s website at tickets@Ceciliachoir.org.
    The St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 34-voice, auditioned choir whose members hail from New Gloucester all the way to Rockland. Founded and directed by Linda Blanchard and Sean Fleming, the Choir celebrates its 12th year of performances in Midcoast and Southern Maine this year. The Choir includes three youth members currently and takes seriously its mission to help promote talented student musicians. The Choir regularly performs a Christmas Lessons and Carols concert each December at Bowdoin College Chapel and has appeared at the Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Lewiston and many other local venues. It is incorporated as a non-profit corporation and accepts contributions that are fully tax-deductible uder State and federal law.
     Linda Blanchard is the Director of Choirs and Sean Fleming is the Organist at St. Andrews Church in Newcastle where the Choir rehearses. The Choir is named after the patron saint of singing and music, St. Cecilia.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir Performs 11th Christmas Season (2006)

    On Saturday December 16th at 7:30 PM at Newcastle’s Second Congregational Church and Sunday afternoon December 17th at 3 PM at Bowdoin College Chapel in Brunswick, the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir will present a ceremony of lessons and carols for the Christmas season.  For many years, the Choir has entertained Mid-Coast audiences with this presentation of carols and readings, modeled after the Christmas Eve service at King’s College at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

    This year’s program begins with Richard Marlow’s setting of the “Advent Responsory” with words taken from an early medieval Roman rite.  The Choir then processes to “People, Look East” - a piece by Richard Francis that was commissioned in Advent 2001; the composer sings with the Choir and also is a highly-regarded composer of choral music and a cellist.  “And I Saw a New Heaven” is a lush and mystical anthem composed in 1928 by Edgar L. Bainton and is followed in the concert program by a thrilling composition by contemporary English composer John Tavener, “A Hymn to the Mother of God”; composed in 1985, “Hymn” is a double choir composition with a text from the Greek Orthodox Liturgy of St. Basil.  The Choir then turns to Bob Chilcott’s “Nova! Nova!” - a joyous presentation of Angel Gabriel’s appearance to the shepherds.  “The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn” by Edmund Rubbra (1926), a moving depiction of the Nativity scene, “Once in Royal David’s City,” with a descant and organ setting by Sir David Willcocks of King’s College, and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” conclude the first half.

    After an intermission, the Choir presents a rousing version of “Masters in This Hall,” a traditional French carol also arranged by Sir David Willcocks.  Interspersed with readings that evoke the season, the concert continues with traditional carols, “What Sweeter Music” composed in 1988 by John Rutter and a marvelous setting of “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” composed in 1966 by John Gardner.  The ceremony of lessons and carols concludes in a candle-lit presentation of “Silent Night,” led by our Christmas Children, Harry Mason of Alna and Thai Lien Parsons of Newcastle.

    The audience is encouraged to participate in singing the familiar carols on the program.

    The St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 40-voice, auditioned Choir whose members hail from locations as far-flung as New Gloucester and Northport.  Linda Blanchard has directed the Choir since its inception in 1995 and Sean Fleming also has served continuously as the Choir’s accompanist/organist.  Blanchard and Fleming are Choir director and organist, respectively, at St. Andrews Church in Newcastle and are extensively associated with choral music and theatrical presentations in Mid-Coast Maine.

    Concert tickets for the December 16 and 17 events are $12 at the door and $10 in advance; students and children are free.  Tickets can be purchased in advance at Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta and Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick.   For more information, call 563-2754.

On Saturday and Sunday, December 18 and 19, 2005, the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir will present a Ceremony of Lessons and Carols for audiences in Newcastle and Brunswick as it has each Christmas season since 1995. Modeled on the traditional Christmas Eve service at King’s College, Cambridge, the ceremony of lessons and carols alternates readings of poetry, sacred works and seasonal entertainment with music of Advent and Christmas.

This year the St. Cecilia Chamber Choir begins its Christmas concert as it has for many years with the “Matin Responsory” of Giovanni Palestrina (1526 - 1594), a thrilling announcement of the Messiah’s expected arrival. Other sacred compositions in the first half of the concert include “The Lamb”, with words by William Blake and wonderful music by John Tavener (1944 - ), a contemporary English composer whose music is informed by his Greek Orthodox faith. Arvo Part, a Russian Orthodox composer from Estonia (1935 - ) contributes the “Magnificat”, a celebration of Mary’s impending delivery of the Christ child. Part’s music was entirely unknown in the West until the 1980s and has qualities of profound reverence, mysticism and joy.

A third major piece with an Eastern Orthodox flavor is “Salvation is Created,” a marvelous Russian choral piece performed without accompaniment, by Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944), edited by Mid-Coast musician Anthony Antolini. Chesnokov’s piece is muscular and vibrant with low bass notes that are a special treat. Interspersed among these sacred pieces are familiar Christmas carols such “The First Noel,” John Rutter’s contemporary setting of “Dormi, Jesu” with words by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and a powerful Advent evocation, “People, Look East”, by Richard Francis, composer and long-time member of the St. Cecilia Choir, who composed this work for Newcastle’s St. Andrews Choir for Advent 2001.

The second half of the concert consists of rollicking carols (“Here We Come A-Wassailing” and “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen”); a rendition of an anonymous 16th- Century carol, “Sir Christemas” by William Mathias (1934 - 1992), Welsh composer and member of the Royal Academy of Music; readings of seasonal poetry; and a jewel-like setting of the Nativity scene “O Magnum Mysterium.” This last piece is by Morten Lauridsen (1943 - ), a faculty member at the USC School of Music in Los Angeles, and received its world premiere for Christmas 1994.

The Ceremony concludes with three traditional carols that audience members will relish: “Joys Seven” with a Stephen Cleobury arrangement; “O Come All Ye Faithful” as arranged by Daniel Willcocks; and Franz Grueber’s “Silent Night.” This year, Nicole Thomas of Union and Gina Maris of Topsham will be the Choir’s “Christmas angels” for the lessons and carols concert.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 34-voice auditioned ensemble with members from Camden to Arrowsic. The Choir is directed by Linda Blanchard with the assistance of organist and accompanist, Sean Fleming, who jointly have led the choir since its inception. Linda Blanchard also directs the Sheepscot Valley Chorus, for which Sean Fleming serves as accompanist, and is Director of Choirs at St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle, where Fleming is Organist.

The choir will present its Ceremony of Lessons and Carols at St. Patrick’s Church in Damariscotta Mills/Newcastle on Saturday, December 18 at 7:30 p.m. and at Bowdoin College Chapel in Brunswick on Sunday afternoon, December 19, at 3:00 p.m. Admission at the door is $12 for adults with anyone 21 or under admitted free. Advance tickets are available for $10 from MacBeans in Brunswick and Maine Coast Bookshop in Damariscotta or on-line from jfarlow@midcoast.com.

Don’t miss this extraordinary event with its mixture of traditional and contemporary celebrations of the Advent and Christmas seasons. Both concert venues (the Bowdoin Chapel and St. Patrick’s new sanctuary) provide marvelous acoustics for appreciating St. Cecilia’s musicianship.
St. Cecilia Chamber Choir celebrates ten years of performing in Mid-Coast Maine with two performances of their spring concert, on Saturday, April 16th, 7:00 p.m. at Bowdoin College Chapel in Brunswick, and on Sunday, April 17th, 3:00 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Church in Newcastle.

Tenth Anniversary Celebration of Choral Singing:
St. Cecilia Chamber Choir Presents Spring Concerts (2005)

This 10th Anniversary concert features works of two great masters of German music, Johannes Brahms and J.S. Bach. Brahms’ Three Motets, Opus 110 are performed without accompaniment in a double choir formation that creates a powerful interplay among the eight parts. At times antiphonally homophonic and at times contrapuntal, these motets are a treat for those who love Brahms’ rich harmonic language. J.S. Bach’s Cantata No. 150 Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (For You, Lord, is my Longing) is deservedly one of his most popular. His setting of the soulful text carries the listener through a spectrum of emotions with breathtaking beauty. Our performance features chamber orchestra, in keeping with Baroque-era practice in use when J.S. Bach originally presented the work in Leipzig, Germany.

In the second half of the concert, the Choir presents two compositions setting the sacred text “Ave Maria.” The first is a sweetly exultant Brahms motet for four part women’s voices and organ. The second, by American composer Morten Lauridsen, is a stunning a cappella composition in ten-part harmony, almost crystalline in its purity. Turning to more light-hearted themes, the Choir also will present three folk songs of the British Isles, The Sailor and Young Nancy arranged by E.J. Moeran, Just as The Tide Was Flowing, arranged by Vaughan Williams, and Down by the Sally Gardens, arranged by H.G. Mishkin. This last Irish air features the tenors and basses in lush four-part harmony. The program concludes with two works, whose texts envision a time of peace. The first, Mendelssohn’s classic Da Nobis Pacem (Grant us Peace) is beautifully effective in its simplicity. We close with a great favorite of St. Cecilia audiences over the past years, a setting of William Blake’s stirring poem “Jerusalem” by English composer C. Hubert Parry. This majestic work has been a kind of national anthem in England for the past century, and is equally thrilling to audiences in America.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir is a 35-voice, auditioned choir with members from locations throughout Mid-Coast Maine from Rockland to Boothbay Harbor. Our mission is to present outstanding performances of the very best choral repertoire; to provide challenging musical opportunities to gifted local youth; to support our community with outreach programs; and to support Maine composers through the commission and performance of new music. This year our student members are Maggie Kelsey of Damariscotta, and Sarah Sproul and Greta Warren, both of Newcastle. From its inception the Choir has been directed by Linda Blanchard and accompanied by Sean Fleming; the husband and wife team reside in Damariscotta and also provide music at St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle. The April 16th and 17th concerts are underwritten with the generous support of Tidewater Telecom and Lincolnville Telephone Company, by Midcoast Internet Solutions, by two anonymous donors and by the collective donations of the Friends of St. Cecilia Chamber Choir. The Choir maintains a web site at www.ceciliachoir.org and will be auditioning new members for its 11th concert season this September.

Do not miss this unique and memorable event for lovers of great musicianship and choral singing in Mid-Coast Maine. The Sunday afternoon concert on April 17th at St. Patrick’s Church, Newcastle, will be followed by a reception at which audience members, Choir members and friends can celebrate the Choir’s tenth year of performance. Advance tickets are available for $10 from Maine Coast Bookshop in Damariscotta. Admission at the door is $12 for adults, with anyone 21 or under admitted free.