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The Wheatland Chorale proudly announces that it will inaugurate its 25th Anniversary Season on the weekend of December 9th – 11th with a highlight performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s beloved work for Christmas Eve, Magnificat. Director Robert J. Upton, who has announced his retirement at the end of the current program year, has chosen his final year with the Chorale to perform Bach’s baroque masterpiece that is well-known among choral leaders and artistic directors as a demanding and challenging piece that few community or regional choral groups will attempt and even fewer will do well.

Although Bach and many of his German contemporaries often wrote in their native language for their protestant patrons and employers it was usually a matter of choice on the part of the patron or the composer rather than a mandate. Consequently Bach stepped somewhat out of character when he composed his version of the Magnificat in Latin. Bach wrote his masterpiece for the resident adult choir at the St. Thomas Church at Leipzig (as distinguished from the reknowned boys choir school dating back to the 13th century) where he served as Cantor. Hence it is a decidedly adult composition that celebrates the mysteries and joys of impending motherhood as well as the promise of God.

Please refer to the overview of Bach’s Magnifcat in the special feature by our guest contributor and former Wheatland baritone, Rändel L. Wolfe, D.M.A, on page 2 of our newsletter.

The Chorale will be accompanied by an instrumental ensemble that was underwritten through the generous support of the family and friends of the Margaret Yeager Shoes for Kids program that was begun this year in Reading and Lancaster in memory of the late Margaret J. Yeager of Wyomissing. Please refer to the box insert on page 2 of our newsletter for more details.

Balancing out the baroque offerings on the program is a wide variety of seasonal works from contemporary composers and arrangers from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Mack Wilberg, Assistant Conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Wheatland favorite Z. Randolph Stroop are representative of the best American contempoary composers, Eleanor Daley and Stephen Hatfield are outstanding examples of Canadian compositional talent and Peter Philips of Tallis Scholars fame along with the world-renowned John Rutter add the necessary British touch to any holiday choral celebration. A commissioned arrangement of the 15th century plainchant “Veni Emmanuel” by the Wheatland Chorale’s own Douglas Weaver will open the program.

Director Upton’s final turn as Conductor will occur next Spring with a performance of one of his personal favorites, A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms. Instead of the usual orchestra or ensemble the instrumental accompaniment will be purposely limited to pianos in order to emphasize the chamber-like qualities of the work and the simplicity of the lush vocal harmonies.

The first stop on the farewell concert tour will occur on April 13 at Zion Lutheran Church in York. It will be followed by the concert weekend of April 20-22. The weekend begins with the Friday evening concert at the acoustically renowned Leffler Chapel and Performance Center at Elizabethtown College, the Saturday evening at Atonement Lutheran in Wyomissing and the finale on Sunday afternoon at the historic First Presbyterian Church in downtown Lancaster.

Tickets, including season tickets, may now be purchased on-line or via telephone using a toll-free number from www.brownpapertickets.com. Payment can be made via credit card or check and tickets may be delivered via email, U.S. Mail or will-call. Naturally tickets will be sold at the door.

The Wheatland Chorale receives funding support through a

grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency

funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National

Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.