News Releases - CUA Office of Public Affairs

Nov. 21, 2006

CUA and National Shrine to Hold 18^th Annual Charity Christmas Concert

Donations Collected at the Event will Benefit Spanish Catholic Center

Musicians from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and The Catholic University of America will present the 18^th Annual Christmas Concert for Charity in the Basilica’s Great Upper Church on Friday, Dec. 1, at 7:30 p.m.

Donations will benefit the Spanish Catholic Center of Catholic Community Services of the Archdiocese of Washington. The center is a non-profit organization that provides medical, dental, immigration, legal, education and social services to more than 40,000 clients at four locations in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.

Prior to the concert, the university will hold its annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in front of McMahon Hall. The 5:15 p.m. event will feature Christmas carols, readings and prayers.

The concert will highlight performances by the Choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine, led by the Basilica’s director of music, Peter Latona, and the CUA Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Professor Leo Nestor.

The musicians will present a concert of carols and Christmas selections spanning several centuries that will include works by Handel, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov, Kodály and Vaughan Williams. Catholic University’s portion of the evening will open with the premiere performance of “Hodie Christus natus est” by Roberto Abel Martínez, a CUA graduate student in music.

Martínez’s piece continues what is now a six-year tradition at the concert — an original fanfare composition by a member of the university’s Benjamin T. Rome School of Music. The CUA Chorus and Symphony Orchestra also will perform a new setting of the Christmas favorite “Silent Night” by Jason Lovelace, a CUA doctoral candidate in music, as well as Nestor’s “Adagio and Villancico.”

The audience will be invited to join the university chorus, accompanied by the orchestra and the Basilica’s organs, in singing carols interspersed throughout the CUA program.

As has been the case during the preceding 17 years, a free-will collection will be taken up during the concert to support a local charitable organization, in this case the Spanish Catholic Center.

Previous concerts have benefited SOAR (Support Our Aging Religious), SOME (So Others May Eat), St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home and the Jeanne Jugan Residence for the elderly poor, among other local charities.

This year’s beneficiary, the Spanish Catholic Center, has been a haven for immigrants to the Washington, D.C., area, since it was founded by the archdiocese in 1967. The center provides services at locations in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Northwest Washington and in Gaithersburg, Hyattsville and Langley Park in Maryland.

First established to serve Hispanic immigrants, the center now helps newcomers from many countries, empowering them to adapt to life in the United States. The center sees about 150 new clients daily at its four locations, often very soon after they arrive in the D.C. area, says Rev. Mario Dorsonville, director of the immigrant and refugee services division of Catholic Community Services.

Father Dorsonville says the concert proceeds will help the center’s paid staff of 50 and volunteer crew of 164 to provide what he describes as “a hand up, not a handout.”

For instance, the center offers a three-month course for a class of 20 students who learn English as well as carpentry and construction skills. “The goal with our services is not to give people a fish, but rather to teach them how to fish,” adds Father Dorsonville.

The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at 202-319-5414 or the National Shrine at 202-526-8300 or visit www.nationalshrine.com. The Shrine is located at 400 Michigan Ave., N.E., Washington, D.C.

MEDIA: To arrange coverage of the concert, contact Jacquelyn Hayes at 202-281-0615 (National Shrine) or Katie Lee at 202-319-5600 (Catholic University).

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The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is the largest Catholic church in the western hemisphere and the eighth largest church in the world. Completed in 1959, its more than 65 chapels and oratories represent the many ethnic devotions U.S. Catholics have to the Blessed Virgin. Pope John Paul II elevated the Shrine to the distinction of Basilica in 1990.

The Catholic University of America, located near the heart of Washington, D.C., is unique as the national university of the Catholic Church in America. Founded in 1887 and chartered by Congress, the university opened as a graduate and research institution. Undergraduate programs were introduced in 1904. Today the private and coeducational campus has approximately 6,100 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in 12 schools of architecture and planning, arts and sciences, canon law, engineering, law, library and information science, Metropolitan College, music, nursing, philosophy, social service, and theology and religious studies.

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Any questions or comments? cu a-public-affairs@cua.edu

Revised: 11/21/2006