George Fox Universitys annual Christmas concert, Tidings of Comfort and Joy, returns to campus Friday through Sunday, Dec. 9-11. All performances will be held in Bauman Auditorium on the universitys Newberg campus.
The concert will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 9-10, and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 11. Preconcert music will be offered half an hour before each performance. The cost is $ 10 for adults, $ 8 for seniors and George Fox alumni, and $ 6 for students and children.
Tickets can be purchased by visiting music.georgefox.edu.
Featured groups include the universitys Concert Choir, Womens Chorale, Symphonic Band, Brass Ensemble, Early Music Ensemble, Flute Ensemble, Handbell Ringers, Mens Ensemble, Strings Quintet and Strings Sextet.
Loren Wenz, associate professor of music, will direct the choral portion of the concert, and Pat Vandehey, assistant professor of music, will direct the instrumental portion. Richard Elliott will serve as associate conductor of the Symphonic Band.
More than 175 student musicians will tell the Christmas story through well-loved carols and traditional compositions. Complementary staging, complete with authentic environmental elements, Scripture reading and narration, will be featured. The concert will also be interspersed with opportunities for the audience to join in singing familiar Christmas carols.
Among the selections presented will be O Little Town of Bethlehem, Isseh, Isseh (an African Christmas song), O Come All Ye Faithful, Shepherds Pipe Carol, Sing We Now of Christmas, I Wonder as I Wander, and Joy to the World.
The event is the largest production of the year put on by the universitys performing arts department, which offers a music major and a music education major.
For more information on concert specifics, contact Debbie Hawblitzel at 503-554-2620.
The university’s Concert Choir is coming off a Sept. 11 performance at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, where the group sang as part of a 10th anniversary concert to honor the memory of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001.
George Fox University is a Christian college ranked by Forbes and Kiplingers among the top Christian universities and is classified by U.S. News & World Report as a first tier regional university and a Best Value school. More than 3,500 students attend classes on the universitys campus in Newberg, Ore., and at teaching centers in Portland, Salem, and Redmond, Ore., and Boise, Idaho. George Fox offers bachelors degrees in more than 40 majors, degree-completion programs for working adults, five seminary degrees, and 11 masters and doctoral degrees.
Contact:
Debbie Hawblitzel
Department of Performing Arts
503-554-2620