Successful Songs of the Season at St. Thomas Episcopal in Bethel

A new December musical tradition launched in downtown Bethel this holiday season, featuring a talented group of young singers and filling St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church.

Nineteen current and former voice students of Phoebe Madden gave a free two-hour concert of sacred and secular “Songs of the Season” on Dec. 22. The concert’s spectacular opening featured small groups of singers carrying candles up the center aisle of the darkened church as each group sang a verse of “Once in Royal David’s City.”

The concert continued with an appealing mix of solos, duets, small ensembles, and whole-group pieces, some of which included dancing. Accompanying instruments included piano, guitar, ukulele, flute, violin and viola.

Songs included such classics as “Gesu Bambino,” “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night), and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” and two songs written by their singers.   Near the concert’s end, the standing-room-only audience joined in a rousing sing-along featuring “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

“Songs of the Season” grew out of similar December concerts Madden presented for many years in Rhode Island, where she taught before moving to Connecticut.