NIC hosting Sounds of Christmas concerts

North Idaho College’s music department will host its annual Sounds of Christmas concert at 7:30 p.m. today, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Boswell Hall Schuler Performing Arts Center on NIC’s Coeur d’Alene campus.

The performances are free and open to the public.

The concert includes performances by the NIC Cardinal Chorale and the NIC Wind Symphony.

The NIC Cardinal Chorale, under the direction of NIC Music Professor Stan McDaniel and accompanied by NIC Music Professor Marietta Hardy, opens the program with “Fanfare for Christmas” featuring local trumpeters, Phil Aarhus and Tom Durbin.

The concert continues with Carl Schalk’s “Before the Marvel of this Night” which depicts the pastoral scene of the first Christmas, along with performances of the English carol “The Holly and the Ivy,” the Polish carol, “Still, Still, Still” and Katherine K. Davis’ “Carol of the Drum.”

The chorale will also perform Anders Enderoth’s “The World for Christmas,” the text of which suggests that the greatest Christmas gift we can give our children is the repossession and restoration of this beautiful, “blue, green, forever-turning world.”

The chorale’s performance also includes Richard Kountz’s “The Sleigh” as well as arrangements of “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,” “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” and concludes with Dan Forrest’s setting of the Howard Thurman text “The Work of Christmas.”

The NIC Wind Symphony under the direction of NIC Music Professor Terry Jones opens its performance with “Hark, Those Jingle Bells are Smokin’” arranged by Julie Giroux followed by “Eighth Candle,” a prayer and dance alluding to the story of Hanukkah.

The symphony continues the concert with “A Very Merry Heart and Soul,” a piece comprised of multiple holiday songs using the tune “Heart and Soul” as the foundation, and a performance of “A Winter’s Carol” by former Spokane composer Mark Williams.

“Williams embellishes the harmonies and uses counterpoint to create this truly moving arrangement,” Jones said. “Only a Grinch wouldn’t be moved.”

The Wind Symphony closes its performance with “Christmas Toons,” a song that tips its hat to holiday cartoons and Claymations.

“There are not enough band arrangements of these classics and good luck finding them in one piece,” Composer Giroux said. “Well, look no further because here it is! Be prepared to smile and perhaps even laugh out loud. As this wild chart rips through them all in a holiday whirlwind.”

The concert will end with an audience sing-along.

The Cardinal Chorale and the NIC Wind Symphony are open to community members and NIC students. For more information about the Cardinal Chorale, contact NIC Music Professor Stan McDaniel at stan.mcdaniel@nic.edu, and for more information on the NIC Wind Symphony, contact NIC Music Professor Terry Jones at terry.jones@nic.edu.