On Friday, December 5 and Sunday, December 7, the choir will continue its long tradition of Christmas performances in the Cathedral of the Madeleine: 331 East South Temple.
Featured will be music by Johann Hermann Schein, and other early masters, as well as much loved carols from many lands including “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” “What Child Is This?” and “O Leave Your Sheep,” as well as the choir’s setting of the rarely-heard Peruvian villancico, “El gallo canta cocoroco.” Also heard will be Woodward’s own “O Bethlehem,” the lovely “Panis Angelicus” by Cesar Franck, and Henri Büsser’s sublime “Berceuse pour la nuit de Noel.”
Harpist Lysa Rytting and organist Ken Udy will accompany.
The evening will conclude with choir, audience, former choir members, and organ joining in several carol favorites.
Both performances begin at 8 PM and promise to be a most heartwarming experience for all able to attend.
Admission is open to all over 6 years of age at no charge (not suitable for infants).
(Suggested donation: $10 per person)
Please join us for these additional public performances:
Saturday, December 13th, 6:00 PM: Community Nativity Festival, LDS Chapel on 10945 South 1700 East, Sandy
Sunday, December 21, 7:00 PM: Family Community Christmas Concert (all ages welcome), LDS Chapel on 951 E 100 South (the choir’s final Christmas performance of the year)
Private Performances:
Tuesday December 16, 4:15 PM at St. Joseph’s Villa Nursing Home
Wednesday December 17, 4:45 PM at Cottonwood Creek Assisted Living
Past Performances
45th Anniversary Commemorative Concert
The Salt Lake Children’s Choir is celebrating their 45th Anniversary year.
Please join us for a special commemorative concert on Saturday, June 7, 2025, at 7:30 PM at the historic Abravanel Hall, 123 W South Temple St., SLC
As part of this special event, we are pleased to showcase Metropolitan Opera soprano (and former choir member), Wendy Bryn Harmer. Wendy Bryn Harmer is best known in Utah for her operatic roles (she was the female lead [Senta] in Utah Opera’s production of Richard Wagners “The Flying Dutchman,” and will star as Leonora in Beethoven’s “Fidelio” in January of 2026).
For our concert, Ms. Harmer has chosen four of her favorite solo songs (by Richard Strauss and Ralph Vaughan-Williams). Near the end of the concert, she will then join our choir in “Climb Every Mountain,” as she did recently on “Music and the Spoken Word” with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. The backup our choir will provide will definitely be vastly different from that of the Tabernacle Choir. However, this will be our own arrangement, and we are looking forward to joining our voices with hers in this truly inspirational song.
Our part of the concert will include a few stand-outs from our repertoire, including pieces by immortal masters Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as captivating melodies and rhythms from Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. Near the beginning will be what might be considered our choir’s “Theme Song,” the sublime, “To Music” by Franz Schubert, which Ms. Harmer says she first encountered when she was a member of our choir. There will likely be others on this program that she will know, since many of the pieces our choir sings are well known in classical circles because their beauty invites repetition and withstands the test of time. Of course, there will be less familiar fare, including the director’s ethereal “Stars,” the wild Hungarian “Dancing Song,” the syncopated rhythms of the Panamanian “Guararé,” and even a surprise improvised dance by an eight year-old member-ballerina.
A 90-100 voice Alumni Choir will perform adult choral settings of three pieces many members will have sung as members of the choir (including the powerful “Onward, Ye Peoples” by Jean Sibelius). However, before this large choir takes the stage, jazz pianist extraordinaire, Steve Keen and combined choirs will “light up the room” in a jazz setting of the American standard, “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”
Following the aforementioned performance of “Climb Every Mountain” by Ms. Harmer and the children’s choir, the evening will conclude with all performers joining in the choir’s traditional, “A Day in Spring.”
We have truly “pulled out all the stops” in planning this special concert, drawing from the most beloved pieces of our long history, plus adding an alumni choir and a brilliant international star to come back and join us. It promises to be an evening long to be remembered by any able to attend.
Tickets are available through ArtTix.