This can be a wonderful sort of oasis for their souls before they get into all of their exams and travel. Did someone say oasis? Sign me up because I'm surely not there during exam season. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Eric Ischmitt, and this is not your average podcast.
It's a cheery one for the Daily Northwestern's 2022 holiday guide, director of music at Alice Miller Chapel and conductor Stephen Altop runs a festival of lessons and carols, a Christmas music filled performance free to all the community every year at Alice Miller. The dates back to 19th century of England, this festival of lessons and carols where they have lessons meaning Bible verses that relate to the Christmas story and music that goes with those verses. Each year, the music alternates between modern and classical Christmas songs with nine readings to accompany the tunes. This year, the show is set for a sunny Sunday morning, December 4th, to be exact.
Altop said that if you need a break from finals week studying, this is the place to be. I think that it just kind of kicks off the holidays for so many of the people who come. It's such a beautiful event. The music is so lovely.
It's just uplifting. The chapel has quite set as in it. It's visually as well as basically beautiful. According to Altop, in the past, it was even more beautiful because of the glimmer and glass windows shining down colorful patterns into the chapel.
Assistant conductor and choir member Drew Richie said choir members go beyond the Bean in Community. The event is made up of a choir, a chamber orchestra and the professional Miller Brass Ensemble. This choir is really unique because there are people that are studying voice or studying music in this choir, but also there's lots of people that are not studying music or studying voice in this choir. So it's very versatile and varied in that way.
Alice Miller Choir member and Weinberg Jr. Avery Minis said the show holds a special place in her heart because it has become a tradition for her. This is her third year performing. She is especially pumped to sing a certain Christmas tune.
I think universally throughout the choir right now, the favorite song is There Is No Rose by John Jobert. And it's a beautiful, very light piece. And we're going to be singing it around the entire congregation, like circling around them in Alice Miller Chapel, which is something we do every year with one of our songs. But one of the reasons Munis are just people to go is because she thinks that since the onset of the pandemic, there's a lack of community in Evanston and among Northwestern students.
I feel like being able to experience music together in the same space and alive performance is such an important tangible experience that we haven't had a lot of in the last two or three years. Richie said that he is excited to see the final product from all the rehearsals and preparations they made. There's definitely a feeling of relief as it's a lot of work to put on a concert of this magnitude. And so when we get to the final performance on Sunday and we had to dress rehearsal the day before and we had rehearsals the week and we're all just kind of hanging in there with finals, it's a big like relief like we made it moment.
From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Erica Schmidt. Thanks for listening to our special Holiday Guide episode. This episode was reported and produced by me, the audio editor is Lawrence Price, the digital managing editor is Anjali Mattal and the editor in chief is Jiggle Fulton. Make sure to subscribe to the Daily Northwestern's podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or SoundCloud.
I hope you have a merry and bright holiday.