CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION TO BOAST CELTIC FLAVOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: December 13, 2004
CONTACT: Scott Slemmons, scott.slemmons@ttu.edu

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION TO BOAST CELTIC FLAVOR

LUBBOCK – Texas Tech University will host the third-annual Caprock Celtic Christmas this year. The concert, a celebration of the music, dance, poetry and folklore of the Celtic peoples of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany, will take place at 8 p.m., Friday (Dec. 17), in the Music Building’s Hemmle Hall on the Texas Tech campus.

Some of the featured performances will include examples of Irish set and step dancing; traditional Irish dance music; Scottish bagpiping; Irish baroque music; Irish, Welsh and English choral singing and an original mummers’ play.

Christopher Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor of music history and literature and the concert’s musical director, said the Caprock Celtic Christmas is already showing great growth and popularity for a tradition that is only three years old.

“We have more than 310 performers in this year’s program,” said Smith. “That includes more than 200 children in the new University Children’s Choir, plus performers from the Schools of Dance, Theater and Music and an Irish dance company from Lubbock.”

Susan Brumfield, Ph.D., associate professor of music education and director of the University Children’s Choir, wrote original arrangements of some traditional Celtic music, and assistant director Jim McDermott, Ph.D., instructor of theatre and dance, wrote an original mummers’ play for the production.

Smith said the Caprock Celtic Christmas will give the audience something they don’t often get from musical performances — the ability to respond directly to the music.

“This program will offer people a chance to listen to music in a way that’s very different from the way most of us experience music,” said Smith. “We experience most music through the radio or over the Internet or by surfing on the remote control of the television. Celtic music is the antithesis of that. This is all about right here, right now, all of us together, making this thing happen. And that participation is as essential coming from the audience as it is from the players. One of the great things about the Celtic Christmas is that, consistently, the audience members have responded. They laugh, applaud, cheer, hiss the bad guys and sing along with the carols. It’s a very involving and inclusive experience.”

Admission for the Caprock Celtic Christmas is $6 for adults, $4 for children under 12 and $5 for seniors. Proceeds will benefit a scholarship in Traditional Music at Texas Tech. Smith said the traditional music scholarship is an innovative award that is offered by very few other institutions in America. It is a competitive scholarship open to graduate students who show expertise in Western classical music and in a traditional art form, such as Irish fiddling, African dance or South American percussion. Concert attendees also are encouraged to bring a donation of canned goods for the South Plains Food Bank.

-30-

SOURCE: Christopher Smith, assistant professor of music history and literature, School of Music, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Texas Tech University, (806) 742-2270, or e-mail christopher.smith@ttu.edu.