Welcome Christmas!

St. Paul, Minn. — The best way to welcome Christmas is Welcome Christmas!, the VocalEssence holiday concert on Sunday, December 25 at 5:00 p.m.

Long a favorite from their appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, VocalEssence rings in the season with an all-new Welcome Christmas! It's an hour of joyful holiday music featuring the Minneapolis-based chorus, VocalEssence, and hosted for the thirteenth year by John Birge.

This year's VocalEssence Welcome Christmas! concert celebrates the holidays with the warmth of traditional carols and the exhilaration of new songs for the season. The concert features a garland of carols from Sweden, and the world premiere of this year's Welcome Christmas! Carol Contest-winning carols, composed for chorus and bell choir. Other carols were chosen by VocalEssence fans in an online audience favorite poll.

Gramophone magazine called VocalEssence "excellent and vibrant." NEA Chairman Dana Gioia named them "one of the irreplaceable music ensembles of our time." Join us in December for holiday classics new and old, when Philip Brunelle and VocalEssence Welcome Christmas!

Playlist:

• Traditional, arr. Chip Davis: Still, Still, Still
• Praetorius/Jan Sandström: Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
• J. David Moore: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (FP)
• Mark Sirett: Thou Shalt Know Him
• Mark Shepperd: Come Join Their Song (FP)
• Traditional, arr. Todd Wilson: Angels We Have Heard on High
• James Pierpont: Jingle Bells
• Various Swedish Carols
• Franz Biebl: Ave Maria
• Paul Lohman: What Child
• Traditional: Ding Dong! Merrily on High
• Daniel Kantor: Night of Silence