Meditate on the story of Christmas with timeless readings from Scripture, sung audience carols, and seasonal choral favorites featuring Whitacre's Lux Aurumque, Wayne Oquin's O Magnum Mysterium, and Rutter's Candlelight Carol. The Hazel Wright Organ and Cathedral Brass will lead the congregation in song and accompany the Diocesan Choir of Orange, the Cathedral Choirs, and the Diocesan Children's Choir.
Sing carols, meditate on seasonal scriptural readings, and hear the choirs sing the music of living American composers including O Magnum Mysterium, by Wayne Oquin and the beloved Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre.
For the first time, Lessons & Carols will include Tagalog, featuring local composer Fr. John Schiavone’s gorgeous choral setting of the Ave Maria in Tagalog!
Wayne Oquin, Composer
With premieres on five continents, in twenty-one countries, and in forty-five states, Wayne Oquin is among today’s most performed American composers. A native of Houston, Texas, Oquin’s music has been commissioned and programmed by The Danish National Symphony, The Munich Philharmonic, The Pacific Symphony, and The Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as by The King's Singers, pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, and Grammy Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs.
On opening night of its 2017-18 season, The Philadelphia Orchestra, under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, gave the east coast premiere of Oquin’s Resilience. This mini-concerto, featuring organist Paul Jacobs, was met with rave reviews, the Philadelphia Inquirer declaring that it, “warranted an instant encore.” Nézet-Séguin led the Philadelphia Orchestra in additional performances in Brussels, Hamburg, and Luxembourg. Jacobs is soon to record the work with The Nashville Symphony, Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor.
Echoes of a Solitary Voice, a tribute to the late Maestro Lorin Maazel, was premiered by The Danish National Symphony Orchestra and received three additional performances with The Munich Philharmonic led by Maestro Rafael Payare.
Oquin’s choral works have entered the standard repertory. His O Magnum Mysterium was recorded by the Houston Chamber Choir and received its New York premiere in Carnegie Hall. On New Year’s Eve night 2018 Alleluia was featured at New York’s historic Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Widely known for his contributions to the symphonic wind literature, Oquin has been performed by the United States Air Force, Army Field, Coast Guard, and the Marine Bands as well as by leading high school and university wind ensembles around the country. His Song for Silent Voices, composed for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Wind Symphony, is the 2018 winner of the National Band Association’s William D. Revelli Award, the second time Oquin has won the prize. In 2016 The U.S. Air Force honored the composer with its prestigious Commander’s Medal of Excellence.
Upon completing his Doctorate of Musical Arts in 2008, The Juilliard School awarded Oquin its coveted Richard F. French Prize for best dissertation and appointed him to its faculty where he teaches music theory, graduate studies, and serves as Chair of Musicianship.
Fr. John Schiavone, Composer
Father John Schiavone is a gifted composer and parish priest who has served in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for more than 40 years. A source of his musical inspiration has always been the liturgical life of the Church, at which he regularly presides and preaches. He served for many years as pastor at St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church in Whittier, California.
His collection of liturgical music, We Adore You, O Christ, contains choral anthems, processional songs, responsorial psalms, Mass parts and bilingual settings. His psalm settings from A Lectionary Psalter were used in the second edition of OCP’s Journeysongs hymnal. He builds his melodies along the lines and modes of Gregorian chant. "I want to keep that 'church' sound in my music and, at the same time make it accessible to the average worshiper," he says. His bilingual English-Spanish pieces are often used at diocesan celebrations across the country, especially the Communion hymn "Amén. El Cuerpo de Cristo," which was used in the Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI at Yankee Stadium in 2008.
Father Schiavone recently began a new assignment as pastor at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Long Beach, California.