HCM CITY – The choir and soloists from the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) will perform at the “Dreaming on Christmas Eve” concert at the Opera House on December 18.

The event will open with well-known excerpts from Messiah, an English-language oratorio composed by Handel in 1741, including For unto Us a Child is Born and Hallelujah.

Soprano Duyên Huyên will sing Ave Maria by Mascagni, while baritone Đào Mác will perform an excerpt Grosser Herr from the oratorio Christmas by Bach.

Soprano Phạm Khánh Ngọc, runner-up at the 2016 International Vocal Competition SLO-ASEAN in Singapore, will continue the programme with the 20th century composer Max Reger’s Maria Wiegenlied and Let the Bright Seraphim from Handel’s oratorio Samson.

The choral excerpt Tollite Hostias from the Oratorio de Noël (Christmas Oratorio) by Camille Saint-Saëns will also be featured.

The concert will end with Christmas carols and songs, including Silent Night, Christmas Rocks at the Pops, and The Bells of Christmas.

Conductor Trần Nhật Minh, who arranged the concert, said: “The concert begins with the image of Mother Mary, and then the winter, the star, and at last Mother Mary and Baby Jesus. The concert will end with the joyful, cheerful atmosphere of Christmas.”

Minh graduated in chorus conduction from the Magnitogorsk State Conservatory (Russia) and then earned his Master’s of Art at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 2007.

He won second prize at the International Competition for Young Conductors in Vladivostok in 2003, and received a Gold Award for the Southern Choir at the International Choral Festival organised by Interkultur, the world’s leading organiser of international choir competitions and festivals, in Hội An in 2014.

He has performed with the chamber choir of the Moscow Conservatory, and in France and Italy, as well as workshops in the Netherlands, the US and Russia.

Minh is now deputy head and chorus master of the HBSO Opera.

The concert will begin at 8 pm at 7 Lam Sơn Square in District 1. Tickets are available at the venue. VNS