PERTH AMBOY – Offering some of the most beautiful music of the season, the choir of historic St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Perth Amboy will perform a Service of Lessons & Carols on December 16,2012 at 10:30 AM. Led by R. Douglas Sheldon, Music Director at St. Peter’s since 1976, this service, now a fixture in the community, will be the church’s 37th Lessons & Carols. Featuring a mixed chorus of thirty-six voices, works will include music for antiphonal choruses by Benjamin Britten and Jacob Handl, a major anthem Welcome all Wonders by Richard Dirksen (formerly Music Director of the National Cathedral in DC), arrangements of carols by Norman Luboff, G. Darlington Richards, F. Melius Christiansen, and Leo Nestor, plus Hodie Christus natus est, by Tuillio Visioli, Two Kings by Joseph Clokely, and a jazz arrangement of Go Tell it on the Mountain.

In addition to Mr. Sheldon, Winston Hughes, Jeff Smith and Patrick Murphy will share conducting honors. Winston Hughes is a retired and much celebrated choral conductor, well known for his work with the Edison High School Chorus. Jeff Smith and Patrick Murphy, graduates of Rutgers University and alumni of the Rutgers Glee Club, are now public school music teachers in Edison, and Old Bridge respectively. Jon Tyillian, St. Peter’s organist and a graduate of Duquesne University, will accompany all carols, anthems and hymns and will perform a prelude and a postlude by Sigfrid Karg-Elert and Keith Chapman respectively. Soloists include Ashley Curling, Alix Sheldon, Asa Vaughn, Jeff Smith, Elizabeth Moran and Elena Gisler. Participating in the antiphonal choruses are Emily Kwan, Amanda Weiss, Cedric Richardson, Patrick Murphy and Cherisse Williams, Joyce Richardson, Jonathan Gonzalez, and Asa Vaughn.

Historic St. Peter’s Episcopal Church is located at 183 Rector Street, Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

For further information, please call the Parish Office (732) 826-1594

Press Release