Notre Dame’s Basilica choirs will celebrate the season of Advent through music Sunday evening at their annual Advent Lessons and Carols concert.
The concert will feature all Notre Dame Basilica choirs — the Liturgical Choir, the Women’s Liturgical Choir, the Folk Choir, the Basilica Schola and the Handbell Choir, senior Chris Siemann, a Folk Choir member, said. Each group will perform a choral piece related to Advent with biblical readings throughout the evening.
“[The concert is] a good way to do Advent intentionally,” Siemann said. “Between … Lent and Advent, Lent seems much more intentional religiously because there are things you give up and things like that, so it lends itself more easily to intention. But this can be an opportunity to have people approach Advent with a different mindset.”
Junior Abby DeMars, a member of the Liturgical Choir, said each group performing will bring a different sound and style of music to Sunday’s performance.
“[Students that attend] are going to get a diversity of styles and different types of music, because you have [groups] ranging from Liturgical Choir, Women’s Lit, to the Basilica Schola — very different styles of music, all focusing on Advent and the coming of Christ,” DeMars said. “So it’ll be a beautiful evening showing the preparation for Christ.”
But that diversity of style is what makes coming together to sing about Advent all the more beautiful, DeMars said.
“All of the choirs that are singing, it’s like — this is our purpose, to make the Liturgy more beautiful and to show the beauty of God and His creation,” she said. “So we all get to do that, and we all do it in slightly different ways, but its all for the same purpose.”
Siemann said Advent, the focus of the concert, is a reminder of what is truly important in the rush before Christmas break.
“I think [the concert] would be a really good way to reflect and kind of get the bigger picture before finals week,” Siemann said. “Because there’s a week left before finals, and final projects and papers are looming, and that’s surely what’s on everyone’s mind. … It would be a really cool way to de-stress and get the bigger picture back.”
That bigger picture is important, DeMars said.
“I like that [the Basilica choirs] get to bring the season of Advent to Notre Dame, so it’s not just straight to the season of Christmas,” she said. “It’s specifically Advent Lessons and Carols, so it’s in preparation, which isn’t so much emphasized, because we want to do Christmas things, which is beautiful.
"But there’s also something to be said about preparation and about waiting for the coming of Christ. … So I really like that aspect of [the concert]. And it’s in the evening so it’s kind of like a night prayer, waiting for the morning to come when Christ comes.”
The Basilica Choirs will perform Advent Lessons and Carols this Sunday at 7:15 in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
