DANVILLE SINGS

Press release

Three of the choral groups of Danville Sings will be presenting concerts soon. The Danville Children’s Choir, under director Emily Roberts, will perform at 7 p.m. Dec. 10 at Lexington Avenue Baptist Church. The concert will open with a Shaker song and folk tunes.

Following those will be a world music segment, and the DCC will sing the Swahili song “Yesu Ni Wangu,” the Spanish carol, “A La Nanita Nana,” and a fun arrangement of “Joy to the World” with African influences titled “African Hallelu.”

This concert ends with the classic “Carol of the Bells” and a sleigh ride through the “Winter Fantasy.”

Resonance, Danville’s men’s choir, and Sounding Joy, Danville’s women’s choir, will again join for a concert that will feature holiday music on its second half. The concert will be 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Presbyterian Church on Main Street in Danville.

It will support with singer and audience donations The Gladys Project, a literacy program for pre-kindergarten children and their families.

Sounding Joy will also perform several pieces about “wild things,” including a setting of Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Peace of Wild Things.” Another piece, “A Blessing of Cranes,” follows the folding of origami cranes that a young Japanese girl, exposed to the Hiroshima bomb, made while in the hospital with leukemia.

A third piece by the young Canadian composer, Sarah Quartel, counts a bevy of songbirds in the style of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”

Resonance will present works from the 18th century forward, including the rousing “Boar’s Head Carol” that describes the presentation of the roasted pig at a Christmas banquet. They will reprise from last year the double-choir “Ave Maria,” one of the most performed pieces for men’s choirs. The two choirs will join together for two selections, a beautiful new arrangement of the carol “See Amid the Winter’s Snow,” and a traditional setting of “Deck the Halls.”

The concert is free to the public but donations to the early literacy program are appreciated.