Choral society begins rehearsals for Christmas concerts
The Bay Area Choral Society has begun rehearsing for their 2024-25 season.
The Christmas concert this year will be on Friday, Dec. 13, at 6 p.m. ET at First United Methodist Church of Port St. Joe, and Sunday, Dec. 15 at 4 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church in Apalachicola.
One of the featured pieces of the concert will be Joseph Martin’s A Weary World Rejoices cantata, which the 33 members of the society will perform with 200 other singers from all over the United States at Carnegie Hall in New York City in early December.
In January, Dana Langford, the choral society director, was sent an invitation that wrote that “in recognition of your dedication to musical excellence, and due to the high quality of your audition recording, it is with great pleasure that I extend an invitation to you and the Bay Area Choral Society to participate in a performance of Joseph Martin’s A Weary World Rejoices on the DCINY Concert Series in New York City.”
Langford said that the society’s performance on YouTube of Joseph Martin’s piece Sing of a Merry Christmas performed during the Christmas 2023 concert “got their attention, and they invited us to sing in this concert.”
The invitation noted that the society’s musicians “will join with other outstanding choristers to form the Distinguished Concerts Singers International, a choir of distinction.”
Members of choral society will leave for New York on Friday, Nov. 29, and will participate in two half-days of rehearsals and clinics culminating in a performance on Monday, Dec. 2, under Martin’s direction.
The choral society’s treasurer, David Davis, said the cost to travel to New York and participate was around $2,500 per person. Over the last few months, fundraising activities along with donations from the community will help defray some of the cost.
“Final payments were made a few weeks ago,” said Davis,
It is not too late to join the choral society. Rehearsals are every Tuesday night from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; members can miss up to two rehearsals.. You can either rent or purchase the music. If you are interested or would like more information, please contact Langford at dana1270@gmail.com.
The mission of the Bay Area Choral Society is to both entertain and educate audiences. With music and narrative, listeners are exposed to various genres and eras of music and provided with the highest quality performance and educational experiences.
To produce this level of achievement, the society relies on donations from patrons and the community to help cover costs associated with putting these concerts together. To make a donation, send a check made out to BACS and mail it to Bay Area Choral Society, P.O. Box 229, Eastpoint, FL. 32328 or pay online through Venmo @BACSSINGS or PayPal at Bay Area Choral Society Incorporated.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.