Yuletide carols: New Mexico Gay Men's Chorus sing in the holidays with festive tunes

Merry music will fill The Lensic Performing Arts Center and The Hiland Theater just in time for the holidays.

The New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus will perform its annual holiday concert accompanied by an orchestra. This year’s choral concert, which is themed “Heaven & Nature Sing,” will be held on Saturday, Dec. 7, at The Lensic in Santa Fe, and on Friday, Dec. 13, and Sunday, Dec. 15, at The Hiland in Albuquerque.

Yuletide carols: New Mexico Gay Men's Chorus sing in the holidays with festive tunes

“The phrase ‘heaven and nature sing’ comes from the very famous Christmas tune ‘Joy to the World,’ right?” said Aaron Howe, NMGMC artistic director. “I don’t actually even know necessarily how the idea came to me, but I was probably just like a lot of times when it comes to holiday concerts, I just kind of think through the different lyrics.”

Staying away from calling the show a holiday concert or a Christmas concert is something that Howe tried for, since they are a dime a dozen during this time of the year.

“You have to kind of come up with something that catches the eye and the ear,” he explained. “We’ve done lots of different things over the years that kind of played off of lyrics from a song somewhere. This is just kind of falling into the way that I tend to pick concert titles, something in a song, and then from there a concept kind of comes out.”

“Heaven & Nature Sing” is more than Christmas or Hanukkah songs. This year the set list is more metaphysical.

“There’s not really anything concrete about it, except for the idea that if you look for it, you can find music, you can find singing, you can find cooperative events anywhere,” Howe said. “I thought I would like to pick songs that talk about the heavens singing or making music, and then the earth singing and making music. I think that in all sorts of traditions, they have that sort of reference, especially in the Christian tradition, where they talk about from heaven came the savior as a baby. But then also in the more pagan tradition, we have the solstice this time of year that’s special.”

It is important to figure out how the Earth is speaking to you, how we are involved in that and how we are connected, Howe said.

“I know this is all kind of metaphysical for a concert, but when you come to the concert, that’s not exactly what you’re going to perceive,” Howe added. “You’re going to perceive, ‘Wow, this is beautiful music, this is emotional music, this is fun music.’ Hopefully, it brings people to a conclusion that they are a part of this universal song. They’re a part of the earth and that being part of something draws you closer to each other, which is basically what we think of during the holidays, being with family and celebrating a time when we can be together in hopefully a more positive and productive way.”

When preparing a program, Howe looks for lyrical content suitable for a tenor-bass chorus.

“If there is a particular song that really fits that theme and there’s a really great arrangement of that, then that makes it in there,” he said. “But then, other times I’ll just do a search with the word ‘nature’ and ‘holiday’ and sometimes something just comes through this, just really beautiful, and just fits quite perfectly.”

An example of this is the pagan holiday song, “Ring Out, Solstice Bells,” which was made popular by Jethro Tull.

“This fits exactly what we’re looking for and this is a really cool piece that is not often performed during the holiday season, but it fits just perfectly,” Howe said. “Hopefully, people will have a nice sort of moment of ‘wow’ when they get to hear kind of more of a solstice song rather than just a Christmas song.”

Howe tries to change things up when it comes to each year’s set list.

“This is especially tricky for me, because I have to do a holiday concert every year, so sometimes I get a little bored with using the same old ‘Jingle Bells’ all the time, and so I try to come up with pieces that I think are interesting to me.”

The performance includes holiday favorites mixed in with less frequently performed music.

“I also realized the audience can’t just listen to a whole concert of rare and esoteric pieces that nobody really hears because people come to a holiday concert to feel something especially kind of with a sense of nostalgia,” Howe said. “When you hear a holiday song that you sang when you were a kid, that gives you a feeling and that’s what people, a lot of times, are coming to holiday concerts for. So there’s a lot of music that people know quite well that does fit that theme, ‘Joy to the World,’ ‘The First Noel,’ those kinds of pieces.”

Some songs are included in the program in hopes audiences will add them to their holiday rotation.

“There’s also pieces in there that they do know, but they may never have associated it with being in their tradition,” Howe said. “They might not have associated it with being a holiday song. And so hopefully, when people hear them, they might say, ‘Well, I want to add this to our tradition. I want to add this to my holiday playlist because I really liked it so much.’ And so then, we grow the amount of music that people can feel nostalgic about during the holidays.”