University to celebrate 70th Annual Candlelight Concert

  Arts+Culture  

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – La Sierra University’s Department of Music will usher in the Christmas season with a treasured, annual holiday extravaganza first performed 70 years ago in its newly-built college church.

La Sierra University's music ensembles performing for the Candlelight Concert in 2015. (Photo: Natan Vigna)
La Sierra University's music ensembles performing for the Candlelight Concert in 2015. (Photo: Natan Vigna)
The College Criterion student newspaper covered the first Candlelight Concert held Dec. 13, 1947.
The College Criterion student newspaper covered the first Candlelight Concert held Dec. 13, 1947.
Music Professor John T. Hamilton directs the congregation and combined choirs in a rendition of “The First Noel” performed as a final selection for the inaugural Candlelight Concert on Dec. 13, 1947 at the La Sierra College Church. (Photo courtesy of the La Sierra College Criterion)
Music Professor John T. Hamilton directs the congregation and combined choirs in a rendition of “The First Noel” performed as a final selection for the inaugural Candlelight Concert on Dec. 13, 1947 at the La Sierra College Church. (Photo courtesy of the La Sierra College Criterion)
La Sierra University Candlelight Concert performance in December 2015. (Photo: Natan Vigna)
La Sierra University Candlelight Concert performance in December 2015. (Photo: Natan Vigna)

The 70th Annual Candlelight Concert, featuring the university’s choral and instrumental ensembles and soloists, will be held Fri., Dec. 1, at 7:30 p.m., and Sat., Dec. 2 at 4 p.m. at La Sierra University Church. Admission is free.

The program of classic and contemporary Christmas works will include Adolphe Adam’s “Cantique de Noël,” Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols,” Gustav Holst’s “Christmas Day,” and “Glory, Glory to the Newborn King” arranged by Moses Hogan. An audience sing-along of the “Hallelujah Chorus” from George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” will feature guest conductors April Summitt, dean of La Sierra’s College of Arts & Sciences on Dec. 1, and Riverside Ward 6 Councilmember Jim Perry who will direct the group on Dec. 2.

The lineup will include the premiere screening of a holiday music video created by the La Sierra University Department of Music and the University Office of Advancement. The video, shot at various locations around California, features La Sierra University student musicians and actors performing the carol, “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel.” The music is arranged by six-time Emmy-winning composer and La Sierra film and television adjunct professor Gary Kuo.

The inaugural Candlelight Concert was first held on Dec. 13, 1947 in the La Sierra College campus church which opened in May that year. Articles about the church construction in the weekly student newspaper, the College Criterion, noted that the new church, touted as the largest Seventh-day Adventist Church in the state and largest church of any denomination in Riverside, would cost approximately $200,000 with main-floor seating for 2,200 people and a 78-foot tower. The Dec. 10 edition of the paper promoting the Candlelight Concert noted that “[t]he combined choral organizations of LSC, totaling 150 voices, will present a Christmas candlelight concert in the La Sierra church. …This is the first such concert in many years and promises to be one of the memorable programs of the current year,” the paper stated.

According to the Criterion, telegrams with best wishes from eminent musicians arrived in recognition of the heralded Christmas event including from renowned choral composer Randall Thompson and noted arranger Roy Ringwald.

For further information about the 70th Annual Candlelight Concert, call 951-785-2036 or email music@lasierra.edu. The La Sierra University Church is located at 4937 Sierra Vista Ave., Riverside.

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