Choir, ensemble, solos, instrumentals…
A deeply appreciative audience, both in person and online…
Lots of preparation, loads of details…
All culminating in a beautiful expression of energy, upliftment, and JOY!
Tonight’s Christmas concert
A joyful ovation
This isn’t the greatest pic (although I’m grateful to our friend, Neha, for capturing a few shots on my cell phone), but hopefully it conveys some portion of the joy that filled the room at the end of our concert tonight.
Hats off to choir, ensemble, accompanists, and tech crew for a job (extremely) well done!
A blast of Christmas joy!
If you’re ready for a blast of Christmas joy, please consider joining us for our annual Christmas Concert, THIS Saturday, December 16 at 5:30pm (PST) in the Temple of Light at Ananda Village.
This year’s concert feels special on several levels. To start with, it’s the first time since 2019 that the full Ananda Village Choir gets to sing on the Christmas Concert.
Secondly, early this year we made the decision to experiment with having a smaller ensemble of dedicated singers who were able and willing to put in the time and effort to take their singing to another level. I believe that outpouring of additional energy is going to bear beautiful fruit in this concert.
Finally, it feels special…just because! I can’t even explain the feeling; maybe the stars are somehow aligned. Who knows? It just feels really, really good.
We start early (5:30pm PST) in order to make the concert accessible to families with small children; that’s also the reason the program only lasts about an hour.
And if you live too far away to join us in person, watch the concert LIVE using this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDCI8OPwO0g (or you can just click on the video above).
I hope you can join us in celebrating the love of Christ and the joy of this Holy Season.
Giving credit where credit is due
I don’t love how huge and all-pervasive Amazon is as a business, but tonight I’m feeling really grateful for their service.
I get so busy during the holiday season that I tend to forget little details like — “what the heck am I going to wear for the Christmas concert?!?”
It’s not like when I lived in San Francisco or Palo Alto or Los Angeles, with multiple options within minutes. I mean, we live in the boonies — thirty minutes outside of Nevada City!
Our “big” city is Grass Valley (where there’s JC Penny and a new — but very small — Target). Or we can drive an hour to Auburn (where there’s a big Target and a Ross Dress for Less). An hour and a half drive will get us to Roseville and big shopping malls, but I dislike shopping at malls in general and especially at Christmas time!
Besides, at this time of year I don’t have time to spend hours driving to stores, hoping they’ll have the style, color, and size I need. So, when I suddenly realized I had nothing to wear just over a week before the concert I turned to Amazon.
And as of today I have in hand three blouses and one black skirt, and I can relax knowing that at least one blouse is going to work well.
So, thanks, Amazon. I appreciate it.
Countdown to the Christmas concert
There’s a not-so-subtle shift that happens for me pretty much every year about this time.
Basically, no matter how early we start preparing for the Christmas concert, there’s nothing like the week before Thanksgiving to bring everything into a razor sharp focus.
So, yeah — this is the week when the countdown clock starts ticking and the pressure begins to build.
Luckily, we had a wonderful rehearsal tonight — both Village Choir and Ensemble — so I think we’re actually in good shape.
So much joy!
I love how this photo captures the joy shining in all the faces and how, if you look closely, you can feel the bonds of divine friendship flowing through the entire group.
And this was at the beginning of rehearsal, before we had sung a single note!
Our Christmas concert preparations are definitely off to a great start.
Choir of a hundred voices
Although there were only four of us in the Temple of Light this evening, we definitely felt united in singing with all the people (there were at least a hundred!) who joined us online.
In addition to Ananda Village residents and friends in Sacramento, we were joined by people in the states of New York, Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, Oregon, Maine, and Hawaii, as well as the country of Colombia.
This was different than our usual concerts because we wanted everyone online to feel they were active participants, so we had our friends Lisa and Dambara in the Temple with us. They helped so much by responding to the live chat and sharing people’s comments.
All in all, it was deeply inspiring and also a whole lot of fun.
P.S. Because the event was recorded (see the video below), you can join and sing along any time you wish. The lyrics to all the songs can found here.
Come sing with us!
We were so looking forward to once again having full choir for our Christmas concert this year, but — for the third year in a row — health considerations have made singing together in a large group too risky.
The concert is tomorrow — Saturday, December 17 — at 5:00pm. In order to still share the spirit of Christ through music, our small singing group will be in the Temple of Light, performing the program our choir had been rehearsing since October. And we’re inviting everyone — choir members, Village residents, our global Ananda community, and friends and family everywhere — to sing along with us via the live broadcast.
Our hope is to feel that we are all singing together, energetically connected through the music, no matter where we are in the world.
P.S. We’re hoping to make lyrics and some sheet music available. Of course, you’re also welcome to just enjoy the music. 😊
Here we go again
Tonight’s choir rehearsal was cancelled due to so many cases of COVID and flu happening in our community. The December 17 Christmas concert is also in jeopardy.
We certainly don’t relish the thought of pulling the plug on the first concert to include full choir in three years(!), but we really, really don’t want to create a superspreader situation either.
Sigh.
I so hoped we would be beyond this by now. 😕
Mission accomplished
We came, we sang, we felt the joy of channeling beautiful music.
Many friends, Expanding Light guests, and fellow Village residents came to listen and be uplifted by the vibrations of beautiful music.
We all rejoiced in the first full concert of live music in the Temple of Light since December 2019.
Personally, I’m now looking ahead to April 2022 for our first Oratorio in the Temple of Light.
It’s time.