Buon Natale: An Italian Christmas

Celebrate the beauty and spirit of the season with Buon Natale: An Italian Christmas, a choral program inspired by Italy’s sacred music and folk traditions. This festive concert moves from intimate prayer to joyful celebration, revealing the many colors of Italy’s Christmas through music both reflective and exuberant.

The program opens with Giuseppe Verdi’s Ave Maria, a deeply expressive setting of quiet reverence and serenity. From there, we enter the devotional world of Ottorino Respighi’s dramatic tableau Laud to the Nativity, which tells the wonder of the Christmas story through rich harmonic language and ancient sacred inspiration.

Next is Francesco Paolo Frontini’s Eight Christmas Songs of the Sicilian People, arranged by Howard Arman—a vivid collection of Sicilian carols filled with folk energy, warmth, and communal joy. The program concludes with Barlow Bradford’s arrangement of Santa Lucia, a heartfelt and expressive Sicilian hymn that brings the musical journey to a resonant close.

The evening caps off with our traditional candlelight finale, a cherished moment of shared reflection and quiet beauty that closes the concert in a spirit of peace and togetherness.