Having trouble catching the Christmas spirit this year? A double dose of traditional, fun, spirit-filled, and jazzy Christmas tunes from Sterling College Music should do the trick! This year’s Sterling College Music Christmas Concerts Choir and Band will be offered back-to-back – the Concert Choir at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 2 at the Sterling United Presbyterian Church and the Symphonic Band at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 3 in Culbertson Auditorium.

With the title “Love’s Pure Light,” the choir concert will feature the Sterling College Concert Choir, the select ensemble Highland Singers, Sterling Men’s Choir, and Sterling Women’s Choir. The college groups are under the direction of music faculty member Marisa Callan. 

In addition, there will be a special guest group known as the “Holly Jolly Singers,” made up of Sterling Grade School 3rd through 6th grade students. The children’s group will join the Concert Choir for the traditional Christmas tune “Do You Hear What I Hear” and will also present “Christmas Round” on their own. The group is directed by Sterling College Music Education student Natalie Schweizer.

The “Holly Jolly Singers” started as a class project for Schweizer. About 20 grade school singers have been meeting with the future music teacher twice a week since late October. “The kids are all excited to perform with the college and for us to share our love of singing and the season with the audience,” Schweizer said.

The theme of “light” will run through the concert which will also include the songs “I Have Seen the Light,” “Hallelujah Light,” and “Carry the Light.” College student Rachel Thomson will perform an oboe solo in the concert’s title song which is a variation of that most popular of Christmas carols – “Silent Night.”

The Highland Singers will be featured in numbers ranging from sacred: “O Nata Lux” to the light “Children’s Christmas Favorites.” The men’s choir will do “You’re A Mean One, Mister Grinch” and the women “The Man with the Bag.”   

The next day on Sunday, Dec. 3 many of the Choir members will spread Christmas cheer not with their voices but with their musical instruments as they present “The Sounds of Christmas Music” as their seasonal concert. Songs from such popular Christmas entertainments as “Home Alone,” “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “The Nutcracker,” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” will be heard. 

The concert will also include sacred music with “Symphonic Prelude on Adeste Fidelis” “Christmas in Brass” which will feature the Brass Ensemble performing traditional Christmas Carols like “The First Noel” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” 

The Sterling College Jazz Band will perform at the concert as well. They will be doing “And Kings Shall Swing” which is a bright swing chart based on the carol “We Three Kings.” Plus, they will do a swing, rock and Salsa arrangement of the timeless classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Johnny Marks.

All of the instrumental groups are under the direction of Larry Brownlee. 

Both “Love’s Pure Light” the choral music concert and “The Sounds of Christmas Movies” the band concert will be presented free-of-charge but donations for the future Scotland Tour will be taken. Both concerts will be livestreamed through Sterling College Music Facebook page.