(O Tannenbaum)
My neighbors and I went to a rather fascinating event last night - The Singing Christmas Tree (see www.singing-christmas-tree.de). This is apparently a long-standing tradition of the German-American Community Choir, which was started back in the early 70s by the U.S. military. The Singing Christmas Tree has been performed on the second weekend of Advent for over 30 years. So it definitely seemed like it was worth a peek.
It was actually quite fascinating. The concert starts in entire darkness with the choir singing "Alleluia" and slowly the Christmas tree lights become visible and then as the lights come up you see that there are also humans in among the tree, as you can see from this picture. But the transformation from darkness to lit Christmas tree to lit tree with beaming faces of singers was really quite striking. It ended in much the same way, with the lights slowly going down as the choir sang "Stille Nacht/Silent Nacht." We were then allowed to take pictures during the encore items. Really an interesting experience.
For those interested, here's the program:
Alleluia
Machet die Tore weit (Psalm 24, 7-10)
A Christmas Celebration (Medley of Silver Bells, The Christmas Song, We Need a Little Christmas)
Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Als ich bei meinen Schafen wacht
Der englische Gruß
Sussex Carol
Carol to the King
Rejoice (from Handel's "Messiah")
God Rest Ye merry Gentlemen
Tochter Zion
Yuletide Americana
Sleigh Ride
Let There Be Peace On Earth
A Christmas Medley
Stille Nacht/Silent Night
We have a large church here in the Sacramento area that has performed The Singing Christmas Tree for at least the last 25 years. They probably perform 20 times each season and are always sold out. Thanks for reminding me that I need to pay them a visit!
ReplyDeleteInteresting. That must be where they stole the idea from, since this was originally driven by the American military.
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