The Solaria Singers professional chamber choir is performing a holiday concert this weekend at the Orlando Museum of Art…and it’s based around the culturally shared concept of light emerging from a dark time.
It’s called “A Solaria Solstice: A Luminous Holiday Concert,” and it features not only holiday standards but contemporary, multicultural and secular songs that reflect on the longest night of the year and the light that comes afterward.
The Solaria Singers is the professional chamber choir that’s part of Central Florida’s larger family of choral performers called Orlando Sings. Director Andrew Minear says this holiday show aims to reach across traditions.
“It’s not just a Christmas concert, it's not just a Hanukkah concert, not just Kwanzaa, but we are bringing in all these traditions, as well as secular traditions,” he said. “The celebration of the solstice goes back for millennia. We think about things like Stonehenge and Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza with the Mayans in Mexico. These are cultures that have been measuring and celebrating the movement of the sun and the Earth, and the relationship between light and dark, and how that changes throughout the year.”
December 21st is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
“The thing that is really meaningful about that to me is…from every day forward for the next six months, there will be more and more light,” said Minear. “And so as we approach this end of the year, we have a chance for a new beginning in the new year. It just fills me with hope and excitement for all the possibilities of what's ahead.”
This is the fifth annual Solaria Solstice show. Although the Orlando Museum of Art venue is new as are many of the songs in the program, that’s a long enough history to have developed a few traditions, Minear said. For instance, the closing songs don’t change.
“One is called ‘Rise, Shine!’ which is a spiritual, and then we finish with this really moving and beautiful arrangement of ‘True Colors,’ which we all know from Cyndi Lauper,” he explained. “So those two have kind of become our traditional closers.”
Minear said he’s excited to participate in Solaria Solstice every year, both because of the high quality of the musicians and the importance of the show’s intentional inclusivity.
“Choral music is one of the most powerful pathways to bring people together,” he said. “People come from all walks of life, and they can join together, take a breath, sing together. Sometimes it's your turn to take the lead. Sometimes you need to just step back and listen.”
“You literally come together in harmony, and you collaborate together and create something beautiful and powerful, and you share it out with the world,” he added.
“And in that way, I often say that choral music is a microcosm for how we all ought to be in the world and in community.”
