As the year draws toward its close, “A Local Touch – Music with a Virginia Connection” brings a warmly crafted musical journey through the Mid-Atlantic. Join Raymond Jones this Wednesday at 9 p.m. on WHRO-FM for an evening filled with choral richness, festive orchestral color, and ensembles from Virginia and our neighbors to the north and south.
We head just south of the Virginia border to North Carolina, where the Raleigh Oratorio Society offers Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Fantasia on Christmas Carols,” featuring baritone James Longmire and conducted by Alfred Sturgis. We’ll also hear them on Craig Courtney’s “A Musicological Journey Through the Twelve Days of Christmas,” performed together with the Cary High School Concert Choir. And from Charlotte, the Charlotte Philharmonic sweeps in with Leroy Anderson’s “A Christmas Festival,” under the baton of Albert Moehring.
Then we’ll head north to enjoy the Baltimore Consort with an early-music selection of lively and lyrical holiday pieces like “The Cherry Tree Carol,” “A Christmas Jig,” and “Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day.”
From Washington D.C., the Washington Oratorio Society presents Daniel Pinkham’s “Christmas Cantata (Sinfonia Sacra),” a vivid work that has become a season staple for choirs throughout the region.
Back here in the Old Dominion, the University of Richmond’s Schola Cantorum offers two Renaissance masterpieces: Joaquin des Prez’s serene “Ave Maria” and William Byrd’s exuberant “Sing Joyfully.” And we’ll have the Virginia Choral Society performing selections from their 2023 holiday program “Angel Band,” directed by Bryson Mortensen.
Join us for an evening of music for the season from Virginia and our neighbors, this Wednesday, December 10 at 9 p.m., here on WHRO-FM 90.3 and also online.
