The annual Carol of Lights and Carol Concert are taking place this Friday on the Texas Tech campus. To talk about the event, two of the directors, Dr. Carolyn Cruse and Jonathon Barranco, of the ensemble visited with The Front Row.
Dr. Carolyn Cruse, Tell us about the concert and what viewers can expect.
This is a very exciting Christmas tradition, for Texas Tech and the entire Lubbock community. The Carol of Lights is at memorial circle in the center, in the heart, of the university and takes place starting at 7p.m. this Friday night.
Directly following the Carol of Lights after the big lighting of the entire university for the Christmas season, following that event is our Carol concert in Hemmle Recital Hall in the school of music at TTU. We say that the concert begins at 8p.m. but that’s a rough estimate of a time because we want to give patrons and audience members plenty of time to come from Carole of Lights over to Hemmle Hall.
Our carol concert this year will feature five combined carols that the audience will be invited to sing along with the choirs…each of our chorals will perform two pieces and in addition, we invited the West Texas Children’s Choir to join us on this concert.
Jonathon Barranco, what role do you play in all the Friday night festivities?
I’m extremely excited and honored to have been asked to put together the choir for the Carol of Lights. This year we have around 50 singers, representative of every ensemble on campus and I think that’s an incredible thing. So I’m going to be preparing the chorus for that.
We will sing in combination with the TTU Trombone Choir. We will be singing Joy to the World, Silent Night, amongst other carols. So I will be participating in that way and I’m very excited.
That’s the outdoor portion correct?
It is. The Carol of Lights, which will take place before the concert, which Dr. Cruse spoke about. In the concert itself I am going to be presenting some poetry. I’ve been asked to pull some poetries for some readings to comment on some of the music we’ve been doing. So I’ve chosen some poetry of the season that has been written specifically by American poets, or poets that have ties to America.
Listen to the full interview at the top of the article.
