North Park celebrated its tenth annual Festival of Lessons and Carols, December 3, featuring performances by the North Park University Gospel Choir Touring Ensemble and Chamber Singers.
Other performers included the NPU Orchestra and the Women’s Chorale, as well as the People’s Music School and YOURS Orchestra Members from Hibbard Elementary School in Albany Park.
This year’s program, Worship Christ the Newborn King, was held at St. Hilary Catholic Church and, following tradition, featured music performed in several different languages. Interim University President Carl Balsam began the service with the opening prayer.
The lessons, mixed between songs, were read by North Park faculty, staff, and students, as well as members of St. Hilary Catholic Church.
First held on Christmas Eve in 1918 in Cambridge, England, the Festival of Lessons and Carols service comes from the Anglican tradition. In such services, music is interspersed between Scripture readings that tell the story of Christ, from the creation of the world to the birth of Jesus.
