Lessons and Carols: A sermon and 100 years of music

Merry gentlemen with an ear for holiday music will do little resting over the coming weekend, as they'll have two performances of Lessons and Carols to attend.

Arise, Shine! is a holiday sermon with heavy musical accompaniment; in this case from the Iowa Wesleyan choir, the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra (SEISO), as well numerous local groups. To accommodate for turnout the event will now have two separate performances. The first - happening in Fairfield - is Saturday, Dec. 1, at 4 p.m., in the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center. The following day, the event will be held in Mt. Pleasant at 7 p.m., at the Iowa Wesleyan University Chapel.

'There's only two pieces in our Sunday performance that are the same as our Saturday performances,” said Bob McConnell, conductor for SEISO. 'So it's almost like two different events.”

About a dozen of his players and himself will be part of the section of the orchestra accompanying Buffington and his choir, made up of four violins, viola, cello, bass, keyboard, flute, trumpet, oboe, and clarinet. When SEISO plays with the Iowa Wesleyan choir - the two groups will have had only two rehearsals, one early this week on Monday and the other on Friday night.

Those two groups also won't comprise the full 175 musicians who will be performing in the event.

'If we had any more we'd have trouble fitting,” said Blair Buffington, the Director of Choral Activities at Iowa Wesleyan and the musical mastermind behind Lessons and Carols' current iteration.

When he took up his directorial position three years ago, he and the university's office of the president had the notion to move the annual event away from being just a sermon with some musical accompaniment and back toward its much more musically gracious intent.

'The program has expanded quite a bit,” Buffington said. 'There's been a lot of collaboration and we've incorporated more than just Iowa Wesleyan students. Last year was first time we included the orchestra; and this year we're adding a lot of local groups.” This includes a women a cappella group as well as high school bands.

The number of musicians isn't all that's multiplied. The first year Buffington orchestrated this event the turnout was in the ballpark of 500 attendees. Last year it was 700. This weekend - between both performances - they're anticipating as many as 1,200 people.

The event is meant to unfold a little like a story, starting with the fall of man moving up through the birth of Jesus. Between that and Iowa Wesleyan celebrating 100 years of music, all involved hope to make this a holly jolly time.