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Our most popular two concerts of the season are back! Lit by the glow of hundreds of candles, enjoy seasonal masterworks, Christmas choral anthems, and family holiday favorites performed by Voices of Ascension. 25 candelabras and close to 600 candles turn the majestic Church of the Ascension into an immaculate Christmastime experience. This is an unforgettable Christmas tradition for New York concertgoers of all ages!

Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is perhaps the most beloved in his tremendous canon of works for chorus and orchestra. Across a full riveting evening, the piece unfolds using two orchestras, two choruses, a children’s chorus, dramatic characters, narration, and exquisite baroque aria performances. The full scope of Bach’s unmatched talent for marrying compositional complexity with profound emotional expression come together to tell the timeless story of the Passion narrative.

No consideration of the complexity of American culture could be complete without considering the perspective of the indigenous people who were America’s sole inhabitants in 1491. Voices of Ascension commissioned composer Danielle Jagelski to write an extended ensemble narrative exploring the history and context of the piece of land on which the Church of the Ascension sits today in Manhattan, the island known by the Lenape as Manahatta. Just as Danielle herself has rediscovered parts of her Oneida heritage that were obscured by active efforts to erase indigenous culture, this work will seek to reveal forgotten parts of the history of the land on which Voices has performed so many of our concerts. In collaboration with musicians and multimedia artists, many of whom are members of North American tribal nations, the traditional and newly-composed works on this program will be sure to make us see the map and territory where we interact in a new light.

Featuring the full range of American choral music, we celebrate the music brought to our shores by Americans who arrived from all over the world. Our concert will celebrate that rich diversity with music by Americans from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Pieces range from the German-American composer Johann Friedrich Peter who worked in a Moravian Church around the time of the American Revolution, to the heritage of 19th and 20th century Jewish composers from Central Europe, to the evocative sounds of contemporary Korean-American composer Bora Yoon.