Music review

Chorus invites guests for cheerful Holiday!

Does the spirit of Christmas seem elusive this year? No worries. It's been found, hiding in plain sight among the 50-plus members of River City Men's Chorus. Holiday! is the name of this year's splendid gift of good cheer, which premiered the first of three performances Sunday at Little Rock's Second Presbyterian Church.

"Our very first concert was a Christmas concert 15 years ago," said conductor and artistic director David Glaze, adding that many of the singers on risers in front of the church's poinsettia-decorated altar have been with the chorus since its beginning.

Clad in tuxedos with festive red cummerbunds and red bow ties and clutching black notebooks filled with lyrics, the smiling chorus members delivered a flawless performance of 20 Christmas-themed selections in a space of 105 minutes (with a 15-minute intermission, which provided an opportunity to sell their popular CDs).

The program covered a lot of musical territory: assorted traditional English carols with transcendent major/minor key shifts, a couple of black spirituals with danceable beats, a jubilant Catalan carol, and seasonal favorites like "Deck the Hall," "Silent Night," and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" Voices blended perfectly, with tasteful highlights by a series of soloists who looked happy to be in the spotlight.

The second half featured affable director Glaze (who accompanied the chorus on a finely-tuned Steinway for much of the show; additional instrumentation included bass, drums, xylophone, and an elegant Yamaha Clavinova digital keyboard) describing the original lyrics of one well-known song on the program: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas -- it may be your last." (Frank Sinatra demanded a more upbeat treatment before he recorded the song in 1957.)

And among the program's most memorable moments came in a mash-up of sacred and secular with 15th-century carol "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" combining with lyrics from "The Rose," made famous by Bette Midler in the 1979 film of the same name.

The 105-minute concert will be repeated at 7 p.m. today and Thursday at Second Presbyterian Church, 600 Pleasant Valley Drive, Little Rock. Admission is free. Get there early; the concert will start when seating capacity is reached. Visit www.rivercitymenschorus.com or call (501) 377-1080.

Metro on 12/11/2017

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