Welcome to Wings of Song!

STURBRIDGE – The community chorus Wings of Song offers a program of songs for Christmas and the Winter Solstice in two upcoming concerts. The first, Saturday, December 13 at 7:30pm, will be presented at St. Joachim Chapel, part of St. Anne – St. Patrick Parish, 16 Church Street, Fiskdale (Sturbridge), Mass. The second is Sunday, December 14 at 3pm, at Elm Street Congregational Church, 61 Elm Street, Southbridge. Both concerts are free, with a freewill offering collected at intermission. The venues are fully handicap-accessible. As always, free refreshments will be served after each concert. Folks are encouraged to arrive early to be sure of a seat.

Over his two decades as Wings of Song Music Director, Nym Cooke has introduced the chorus and its audiences to a wide variety of music. This program is no exception. Pieces come from places as far apart as Denmark and South Africa. Musical styles range from French Baroque opera to white gospel. Featured instruments include handbells, djembe, and upright bass. Compositional dates stretch from the early 1500s (composer: King Henry VIII of England) to 2025 (composer: Wings of Song tenor Gianni Davilli). Moods vary, from deeply peaceful to ferocious.  Familiarity ranges from widespread (classic Christmas songs such as “O Little Town of Bethlehem”) to nonexistent (two world premieres). Pieces last less than a minute to over five minutes. Vocal range spans almost four octaves. Musical textures range from highly contrapuntal (rounds such as “This Longest Night” and “Full Moonlight Dance”) to grandly homophonic (the ever-popular “O Holy Night,” in John Rutter’s magnificent arrangement).

The interlocking themes of night, moon, and stars proved to be enormously rich: many wonderful texts and pieces of music have been written to celebrate the mystery of darkness, or to bring spiritual light and uplift at the darkest time of the year. People are strongly encouraged to bring stars or moons to these concerts, to be held or hoisted aloft at key points in the proceedings. (More than one moon is fine, in the spirit of celebration.)

Nym waxes enthusiastic about the chorus: “One of the many good things about this group is that we are becoming more and more a collaborative enterprise. Rather than me saying, ‘This is how this piece should go’ and that’s it, I start things off and then chorus members come up with all sorts of great contributions—an idea for dynamics here, a pertinent question about breathing there, an instrumental suggestion from someone else. There are so many deeply musical people in this group! And equally important are the devoted folks who just love to sing, and who help make our sound as big and thrilling as it is!”

People attending these concerts are in for a treat—a deep dive into some of the enduring mysteries of this charged time, mysteries stemming both from the natural world and from Christian tradition. Miracles will abound. Come and hear!