UC hosting Christmas at the Cumberlands concert

Ring in the Christmas season with University of the Cumberlands! The university is hosting their sixth annual Christmas at the Cumberlands concert on Sunday, December 3rd, at 4pm in the O. Wayne Rollins Center (large gymnasium). Doors open at 3pm, and seats are first-come, first-served. Handicap seating will be available. The program usually lasts about an hour and a half. All are invited to attend the FREE festivities!

Immediately following the performance, Christmas cookies and other refreshments will be served at a reception hosted by the Office of the President in the Boswell Campus Center (BCC), located directly across the street from the gymnasium.

Dr. Smoak, choral professor at Cumberlands, said, “Part of the reason we host the concert so early in December is to offer a Christmas program that doesn’t disrupt families’ Christmas plans, and because, in my opinion, this helps usher in the Christmas season in our little town of Williamsburg. It is a community-welcoming event.”

Dr. Smoak and other music faculty have been working on this production since summertime. More than 100 students from all of Cumberlands’ musical ensembles will perform, from choirs to band to jazz band, with a special solo performance by Dr. Tara Warfield, a new vocal professor. Several faculty members will perform as well. Ms. Erica (Broome) Harris, a local UC alumna and executive director of Alumni Services at the university, will open the event. This year’s MC is Dr. Ryan Hanley, chair of the Department of Missions and Ministry at UC.

Hosting a community-focused Christmas concert has been a tradition at Cumberlands for decades. Within the concert itself is another tradition: inviting Cumberlands alumni to sing “White Christmas” together with the Cumberland Voices choir at the end of the performance. The late Harold Wortman, a past chair of the Department of Music at the university, began the tradition of inviting the community to participate in a musical Christmas program more than 50 years years ago.

The performance will feature a mixture of traditional Christmas songs and several more contemporary pieces. A few songs on the list are “Joy to the World,” “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” “Mary, Did You Know,” and an updated, jazzy version of “Jingle Bells.”

Christmas at the Cumberlands is a free event that starts promptly at 4pm on Sunday, December 3rd. All are welcome to join UC as they ring in the holidays!