Pasadena Chorale is set to present its free holiday concert on Dec. 5, 2023.

The event will feature Shawn Kirchner’s “The Light of Hope Returning” at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena, California. The ensemble delivered the LA premiere of the piece back in December 2022. The Pasadena Chorale will be joined by the High Notes, a choir of middle schoolers who recently gave their first performance.

“’The Light of Hope Returning’ celebrates the ‘turning of the year’ in a new folk oratorio combining the winter solstice, Christmas and New Year’s themes,” said  Kirchner in an official press statement issued by the company. “We figuratively sit at the fireside of a wise Matriarch soloist as a tale unfolds of the ‘light of hope’ waiting on the other side of darkness. Good cheer abounds in the face of tyrant threats and troubled times.”

In a review of a performance from December 2022,  Stir’s Gail Johnson wrote that the work “created a piece that journeys across landscapes and moods, sometimes through traditional carols and new seasonal songs… It’s all in celebration of the holidays, speaking to the changing of the seasons, the cycle of life, and the eternal conflict between darkness and light.”