The Brevard College Concert Choir and Chamber Singers invite you to the 19th annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Saturday, Dec. 9 in The Porter Center for Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m.
The concert is free and open to the public.
The Brevard College Concert Choir and Chamber Chorale will perform several carols and anthems under the direction of Dr. David Gresham. The annual service follows in the tradition of the longstanding ceremony held at King’s College in Cambridge, England, where the Festival was introduced in 1918. It is traditionally held on Christmas Eve. The ceremony alternates biblical readings chronicling the prophecy and birth of Christ with carols that illuminate a part of the previous reading.
Edward Benson was the initial developer of the format, when he created the nine lessons and carols program in 1880. Later, King’s College began the tradition of holding the yearly service with Benson’s original lessons. The carols King’s College sings are slightly different from the original programming used in the early 1900s but only show great variance when they have a change in organist.
The program at Brevard College includes the original readings, along with supplementary carols selected by the director. The conclusion of the program is a beautiful candlelit arrangement of “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night).