St. Charles Singers to Share Holiday Stage With Celebrated Soprano

The St. Charles Singers will welcome acclaimed operatic and concert soprano Michelle Areyzaga when it opens its 25th anniversary season in December with a wide-ranging program of Christmas music.

Ms. Areyzaga and the professional chamber choir of 30-some voices will perform “Candlelight Carols With Special Guest Michelle Areyzaga” Sunday, December 7, 3 p.m., at St. Michael Church, 310 S. Wheaton Ave., Wheaton, Ill.

“With the choral works on the program and audience sing-alongs between sets, the concert will offer at least 25 songs, one for each of our 25 years,” says Jeffrey Hunt, founder and artistic director. The program embraces traditional and contemporary carols, including jazz arrangements.

“Most of the songs — about three-quarters of them — will be new to our repertoire, so audience members can expect to hear a fresh and bracing Christmas program,” Hunt says.

Ms. Areyzaga, a resident of the Fox River Valley area, will perform as soloist in a special set of six songs for soprano and a cappella choir. A member of the St. Charles Singers in the mid-1990s, she has garnered glowing reviews for her opera and concert appearances. Opera Magazine called her singing “stunning,” while the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently praised her as “a soprano of gleaming gifts.”

She has sung roles with Chicago Opera Theater, Light Opera Works, Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, Opera Birmingham, Chicago’s Silk Road Initiative, and Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México. She has sung as guest artist with Camerata Chicago, Chicago Master Singers, and other groups.

The sunny soprano will collaborate with the choir in “Niño Lindo” by Venezuelan composer Alberto Grau, founder of the noted chorus Schola Cantorum de Venezuela; the serenely contemplative lullaby “Song of Mary” by Carl Fischer and Albert Kranz; “A Hymn of the Nativity” by Kenneth Leighton, a much-honored, 20th-century English composer; and “Carol of the Birds,” a traditional Spanish carol arranged by Robert Shaw and Alice Parker.

Ms. Areyzaga’s set will also include two songs by African-American composers: “Mary Had a Baby” by William L. Dawson, a choral conductor who had an abiding interest in black American folk songs; and “Who Is the Baby?” by Auburn University’s Rosephanye Powell, a Christmas song in a spiritual style, with a gospel element that creates layers of enthusiastic, syncopated sound.

Audiences will hear the choir sing two different settings of “Ave Maria,” one by Javier Busto, a contemporary Spanish composer from the Basque Country, the other by Franz Biebl, a modern giant of German choral music.

The program will include songs by Early American composer William Billings, who was a friend of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams; celebrated 20th-century English composer Benjamin Britten; the prolific Healey Willan, “Dean of Canadian Composers” with more than 800 works to his credit; Morten J. Luvaas, founder of the Allegheny Singers; and others.

In keeping with its holiday tradition, the St. Charles Singers will close the program with Sir David Willcocks’ arrangement of “Silent Night.”

Single concert tickets are $30 general adult admission, $20 for seniors 65+, and $10 for full-time students 23 and under. For concert tickets and information, call (630) 513-5272 or visit www.stcharlessingers.com.
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