This Sunday, December 15th, The Carmi League of Arts in conjunction with the Carmi Ministerial Association will present “Christmas in Harmony,” a worship cantata, featuring a multi-church choir, Alumni Singing Six, and a Munchkin Girl’s Chorus, celebrating the true meaning of the Christmas season. Directed by Tracy Orr, the concert will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the Carmi-White County High School Auditorium. Tracy was a guest Friday on WROY’s Open Line Program. She talked about how she used to direct a cantata at her church but decided not to do it this year, but then thought she would like to do one for the community. Tracy explained how her idea took off from there…
“As I was thinking this through in my head, my Mom, Lynn Cantrell, is really active with the League of Arts, and she and Sherry Passmore had had a meeting and the League of Arts had decided this year they weren’t going to do Holly Jolly Follies. They had been doing it for, I think, the last four years, and decided it was time to move on and maybe come up with a fresh idea. So then the Holy Spirit started talking to me like, ‘This is an opportunity. This is a chance.’ What if we make this bigger than what my mind had. That we could instead make this a community event, hold it in a neutral location, as in the High School, invite the Carmi Ministerial Association to partner with the League of Arts, so that we could include all the churches in the community, anybody that wants to come. So we start kind of snowballing this idea that maybe this could be a thing. God showed up and it has been taken from my tiny little idea of I should do a cantata to this gigantic, unbelievable event that I can’t wait to share with the community.
Tracy says the Cantata will mix traditional Christmas Hymns with more Contemporary Christian Christmas songs. Something that is sure to please all generations. And speaking of generations Tracy went on to explain the make up of the 50 participants in the choir.
“Our generation spans 4 generations wide. Our singers range in age from 5 to 101. So we are 4 generations, 8 different churches, and that age range just blew my mind. All together we will have around 50 singers in the choir.
Keegan Dennis will provide the narration for the Cantata.
Admission is Free but you are asked to please bring a non-perishable food item or items to donate to the local food pantry. Members of the Carmi Ministerial Association will be in the lobby to collect those items.
If you would like a preview of the cantata, you can check out a video of the choir singing “The First Noel” on the Carmi League of Arts Facebook Page. You can also find additional information about the cantata and keep up with other League news.
Tracy says it was a team effort to pull off this community event and she hopes it will be a blessing to the community.
