Date: December 11, 2022
Time: 3:00 PM - 4:30PM
Location: EMPAC

This year’s annual Holiday Concert (“Many Voices, One Song”) will use music as a vehicle to celebrate the diversity and shared purpose of the Rensselaer Community. In addition to the Rensselaer Orchestra and Concert Choir, the program will feature the inaugural public performance of the Rensselaer Jazz Ensemble and a featured performance of Indian classical music by first-year student and tabla virtuoso Vivek Pandaya. Under the direction of Professor Robert Whalen, the orchestra will perform Valerie Coleman’s Seven O’Clock Shout, a musical tribute to the service and sacrifice of healthcare workers in the early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The jazz ensemble, directed by Professor Jillian Willis, will offer a cross-section of jazz history, including the standards “Lullaby of Birdland” and “Nature Boy” alongside the contemporary composition “Running Out of Time.” Other highlights of the program include works by Mxolisi Matyila, Lili Boulanger, Arvo Pärt, Edward Elgar, and an arrangement by student composer Rose Bollerman. The program will close with Antonin Dvorak’s thrilling and celebratory Carnival Overture. Using the medium of music, this program foregrounds remembrance and joy; it celebrates the dedication and creativity of our Rensselaer students; and it affirms the fact that—whatever our differences—we can join together in solidarity to create something greater than the sum of its parts.