Christmas
Revels
18 Performances
December 12-14, 18-22 & 27-30
Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA
Evoking the world of Thomas Hardy, The Christmas Revels of 2008 will give us a taste West Gallery music. English country church choirs of the late 19th century were made up of men and women who enjoyed both sacred and secular music. The spirit that moved them at the harvest dance on Saturday night often showed up at church on Sunday morning. Sometimes a few instruments would be added to the voices -- a cello, a fiddle, a horn, even a serpent (a curvy bass wind instrument carved out of wood and fiendishly difficult to play).
Thomas Hardy admired the joyful noise created by these lively country musicians,
evident in his description of such a band in Under the Greenwood Tree.
With poetry and narrative, Revels will create an onstage world reminiscent of Hardy's
fictional English county of Wessex. In the music, theater and dance that informed the
background of Hardy's novels, and with the help of The Mellstock Band, our special
guests from England, we hope to catch the spirit of a very special
moment in English history -- the time of the great social shift from country to town.
Other performers will include musician David Coffin, soloist Mary Casey, The Pinewoods Morris Men, Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble, The Revels Chorus of adults and children - and you!
See the performance schedule
