"Sound the Bells!" - December 3

About this event

Our December concert highlights bells, a quintessential symbol of the holiday season. We being with a John Williams fanfare inspired by bells, and the theme of this concert, Sound the Bells! Originally written for piano, Blithe Bells is Percy Grainger's free ramble on Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze - an impressionistic study on the Bach melody highlighting the sound of sheep bells. John Philip Sousa was in Chicago witnessing a spectacle called "America" when a backdrop with a painting of the Liberty Bell was lowered. By coincidence, Sousa received a letter from his wife the next morning telling how their son had marched in his first parade in Philadelphia - a parade honoring the return of the Liberty Bell, which had been on tour. Sousa's march was then christened The Liberty Bell .

La Fiesta Mexicana was a result of Herbert Owen Reed's time studying folk music in Mexico and reflects his observations of the culture. The programmatic piece opens with the tolling of the church bells at midnight officially announcing the opening of the Fiesta. The second movement, Mass, presents the tolling of the bells, reminding us that the Fiesta is a religious celebration. The third movement, Carnival, depicts a circus, the market, a bull fight, the town band, and the cantinas with their band of mariachis.

To send everyone off in the holiday spirit, we close with Julie Giroux's creative setting of Jingle Bells , which is, as Giroux puts it, a kind of wild ride for the performer and the audience!

Program

John Williams (arr. Lavender) – Sound the Bells!

Johann Sebastian Bach (arr. Grainger) – Blithe Bells

John Philip Sousa – The Liberty Bell

H. Owen Reed – La Fiesta Mexicana

Julie Giroux – Jingle Them Bells

From The Naperville Winds