After the turkey, save the dates for Winterfest and Wassail

Save room on your holiday calendars now for two of Chapman’s jolliest traditions – the second annual WinterFest celebration and the 50
^th
Annual Holiday Wassail Banquet and Concert.

First, round up the neighbors and bring them to campus Thursday, Dec. 5, at 5 p.m. for Chapman University’s second annual “Winterfest” holiday celebration and tree-lighting.  This free community event will feature a Holiday Marketplace of booths featuring beautiful gift items ranging from handbags and jewelry to food gifts. Plus, there will be live performances of seasonal music by the Chapman student ensembles, free hot chocolate and hot cider, children’s activities and fireworks.

Doy’s Holiday Tree — named for Doy Henley, chairman of the university’s board of trustees — will be illuminated, along with the other festive trees throughout Attallah Piazza. And there will be many surprises.  We hear the weather report may call for a bit of snow!

Then even more lights will brighten the campus when the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music presents the 50
^th
Annual Holiday Wassail Banquet and Concert on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 6 and 7.

One of Orange County’s oldest and most beloved holiday traditions, the banquet and concert celebrate the season in style.  The evening opens with strolling music ensembles and a warm reception inside the Fish Interfaith Center, featuring the hot cider-based drink wassail.

Graciously served to you while talented student carolers serenade the tables, the banquet is a sumptuous feast.  Along paths lined with shimmering luminarias, guests stroll after dinner to Memorial Hall, where the Chapman University orchestra and choirs, under the batons of conductors Daniel Alfred Wachs, Angel Vázquez-Ramos, Ph.D., and Stephen Coker, DMA, perform a concert of Christmas and related holiday music.

The concert culminates with a very special moment, as Bill Hall, DMA, who led the Chapman choral groups and music program for more than 50 years and is now dean of the under-construction Musco Center for the Arts takes the podium to conduct his traditional closer: the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s
Messiah
.  All audience members are invited to join in the sing-along as the hallelujahs raise the rafters!

The Wassail dinner is at 6 p.m. and followed by the concert at 8 p.m. Dinner and concert tickets are $75 and concert-only tickets are $20. For tickets, call 714-997-6812 or order via
http://chapman.universitytickets.com
.