Boston Gay Men’s Chorus: Holiday Serenade

Boston’s most diverse and inclusive holiday program offers music for everyone.
The 150-voice Boston Gay Men’s Chorus will sing 4 concerts celebrating the holiday season featuring traditional carols and songs for Christmas and Hanukkah, Ariel Ramirez’s Navidad Nuestra, a joyous setting of Argentinean melodies and dances, plus an outrageous invasion by a high-kicking troupe of dancing girls. Under the direction of Reuben Reynolds, the BGMC will sing favorite holiday songs such as “O Come All Ye Faithful,” arranged by Eddy Clement, “A Splash of Christmas” arranged by Leo Schwartz featuring a dozen well-known carols, and Chad Weirick’s “Ring-A-Ding Carols,” which include “Sleigh Ride” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” The Chorus will also perform Three Hanukkah Songs arranged by Charles Baker.

Traditional choral music on the program includes Anton Bruckner’s “Ave Maria,” Morten Lauridsen’s “O Magnum Mysterium,” and Ariel Ramirez’s “Navidad Nuestra,” a set of Argentinean folk carols which tell the story of the Nativity. Also, the BGMC’s 40-voice chamber chorus will sing Conrad Susa’s “A Winter Serenade,” commissioned by the BGMC in 1993 with a text by Longfellow.

The finale of the program takes a satirical turn as famed ballet mistress Madame Anastasia (late of the KGB School of Ballet in Leningrad, and current proprietess of the South End Academy of Ballet, Tap, and Decoupage) returns to the BGMC stage with her company’s threadbare-but-authentic version of The Nutcracker. However, a fight ensues when a troupe of leggy interlopers from New York City invade Jordan Hall and threaten to evict the classic ballet onto Huntington Avenue.

All performances are sign language interpreted.