Santa Fe Desert Chorale brings 'Carols and Lullabies: Luminaria' to Santa Fe, ABQ

The Santa Fe Desert Chorale brings music and light to Albuquerque and Santa Fe with “Carols and Lullabies: Luminaria.”

“Our winter program is always a mix of seasonal favorites and things that people will recognize, carols that they associate with this time of the year,” Joshua Habermann, Santa Fe Desert Chorale artistic director, said.

The concert program is a mix of new works, modern pieces and historic music, he said.

“Carols and Lullabies: Luminaria” runs from Saturday, Dec. 13, through Sunday, Dec. 21.

“‘Luminaria’ is our title for this year, because being in New Mexico, that’s sort of a symbol of New Mexico Christmas,” Habermann said, “and we do think of it as sort of a light in the darkness this time of year.”

Jenna McLean, who has been with the choir for the last four years, said her favorite classic song is “Silent Night,” which closes out the concert every year. She loves how everyone’s voices come together at the very end.

“As an artist, it’s really nostalgic, because we’ve all been singing these songs for so long,” McLean said.

“And to live in the harmonic contour of everything is really special.”

Habermann said audiences will experience different places, geography and time periods through the music.

“It’s really meant for people who are interested in having an exploration of choral music, learning something new, maybe hearing a few things they’ve never heard before,” Habermann said. “But then also hearing some things that they know and love, possibly in some new and interesting arrangements.”

He said one of the older musical works is one they sing at the start, a Gregorian chant that is many centuries old. The program then flows into the Renaissance period and to modern music.

“We wanted people to enter into a space that’s kind of quiet and meditative and beautiful,” Habermann said.

From there, the program gets rhythmic and upbeat, he said.

The Sunday, Dec. 14, concert in Albuquerque is sold out, but there is a waiting list at desertchorale.org. The chorale hopes to move the concert to a bigger venue in Albuquerque next year.

McLean said the audience motivates her to go deeper and give more in her performances.

“The audiences are always really large, and the energy of the audiences are always really exciting as an artist,” McLean said.

She said she loves to look out over the crowd and see them smiling and connecting with the singers and music.

“Just seeing the smile, it reminds me of, this sounds so cheesy, but it truly reminds me of my first experiences with chorale music,” McLean said.

Habermann said he finds it gratifying to walk out on stage and see every seat taken, but his favorite audience interactions come at the end with the last song.

“We’ll surround the audience and sing to them so they’re literally surrounded by the voices,” Habermann said.