Lessons and carols

Saint Joseph's College had two musical events on its calendar this afternoon. At 2:00 the second-ever performance of the SJC orchestra took place.

 I missed the first performance, which took place last year when the orchestra had only five members. This year it had ten, including eight students who play violin. Trying to build an orchestra at a small college must be one of the most challenging jobs in academia. The group performed well and the audience enjoyed the performance, but it still is not on par with the much longer established band and chorus. It will be interesting to see how it develops over the next few years.

About an hour after the orchestra performance, the 2012 edition of Lessons and Carols took place in the college chapel. It is both a musical event and a religious service. The story of the nativity, beginning with Adam's fall, is told in a series of nine Bible readings. Between the readings the chorus, sometimes with the participation of the people in the packed pews, sang religious songs. As you can see from the picture below, the chorus is much larger than orchestra.

The orchestra, by the way, was there, off to the left of this picture. For some of the songs they did nothing, but they did contribute to what was the musical highlight of the service, the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. Having violins on campus should expand the things that the chorus can do.