December 2, 2017
Welcome – From the Artistic Director
Good evening and welcome to tonight’s performance of Caroling All the Way. We are so excited that you are joining us to celebrate this holiday season with music from around the world. The concert begins with Windy City Gay Chorus & Windy City Treble Quire singing the holiday classics We Need a Little Christmas, Walking in a Winter Wonderland, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. In recent years Windy City Performing Arts has offered several cabaret performances to great review and sold-out audiences. This year we decided to add the cabaret into our season lineup and I’m pleased to report we saw two weekends of sold-out performances. A few of the cabaret singers will present the Sinatra hit We Wish You the Merriest. Next, Windy City Gay Chorus presents one of the evening’s extended works, Carols and Lullabies for tenor-bass chorus, guitar, harp, and percussion. This melodic and folk-like work arranges Christmas carols from Spain, Mexico, and Puerto Rico in Spanish and Catalan, and features many solo textures woven throughout the music for full chorus. The second half of the concert features Windy City Treble Quire singing the other extended work, Ceremony of Carols, Benjamin Britten’s famous setting of Old English Christmas texts for choir, soli, and harp. Following the translations will help listeners better appreciate the foreign and Old English texts. The two choirs join together to finish the concert with the ethereal Solstice, and the triumphant Hannukah songs Everlasting Light and Dai Diddle Dai. The concert concludes with a toe-tapping arrangement of the Epiphany spiritual Go Tell It on the Mountain. We hope you enjoy the concert! Thank you for helping our singers celebrate the season with pride! Thank you for your support of Windy City Treble Quire and Windy City Gay Chorus.
Enjoy the show!
Dr. Eric Esparza,
Artistic Director
• WINDY CITY GAY CHORUS •
Founded in October 1979, Windy City Gay Chorus is the oldest gay chorus in Illinois and the Midwest, and one of the first gay choruses organized in the country. WCGC is a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA). WCGC’s first performance was in December 1979, at the “Don We Now” holiday concert at Stages Music Hall. Windy City Gay Chorus has performed in cities throughout the country, and has been lauded by the Illinois House of Representatives, the mayors of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle, and Chicago mayors Rahm Emanuel, Richard M. Daley, and the late Harold Washington. The chorus has a commitment to performing music that is as challenging as it is entertaining.
• WINDY CITY TREBLE QUIRE •
Windy City Treble Quire is WCPA’s treble chorus. Formed in 1996 under the name Aria: Windy City Women’s Ensemble, it was originally the small, women’s ensemble of Unison: Windy City Lesbian and Gay Singers, and quickly became an audience favorite at concerts and special appearances over the years, performing at GALA Festival 2000 in San Jose to rave reviews. Now, with a new name that reflects today’s reality of a chorus that encompasses singers who self-identify as female, male, straight, gay, trans* or bisexual, Windy City Treble Quire embraces its role as a totally inclusive chorus. The word ‘Quire’, an old-English spelling of ‘choir’, also gives voice to chorus members who identify as queer. WCTQ performs music that not only entertains but reminds us of our diversity, and is poised to make a lasting impact on the mainstream as well as LGBT music scene.
• WINDY CITY PERFORMING ARTS •
Windy City Performing Arts (incorporated in 1983) is the independent not-for-profit umbrella organization comprised of Windy City Gay Chorus and Windy City Treble Quire. Each chorus performs a variety of musical styles from classical to pop. We pride ourselves on musical excellence regardless of the style of music, and have a history of performing major choral works including specially commissioned pieces. WCPA made history in 2003 when we became the first LGBT choral organization to sing the National Anthem at an Illinois professional sporting event, opening for the Chicago White Sox. The choruses of WCPA have performed on regional and local stages, from Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago) to Carnegie Hall (New York).
Windy City Performing Arts 