Community Chorus presents 32nd annual Christmas concert

Clarence Smith has presented his holiday concerts for 32 years.

Sunday s 6 p.m. Christmas Concert by the Clarence Smith Community Chorus will be a 75-minute gift of seasonal songs, spirituals, and classical pieces.

In addition to absorbing a bounty of harmonic energy, the audience will stir up some of their own in the carol along led by Smith, founder and director of the 30-person choir.

It s fun. We have the men sing; just the women sing. If there s one time of the year that people like to sing, it s Christmas, said Smith, adding that singing together is inherently uplifting and uniting. So people leave, if they weren t before they came, pretty high on the Christmas spirit.

It s the 32nd annual Christmas concert for this acclaimed group that believes in bringing and receiving joy through music.

Sunday night s program includes a spirited arrangement of O Come All Ye Faithful featuring several vocal parts, a gospel arrangement of the 19th century s O Holy Night, a duet with bass voices singing The Birthday of a King, and the Norman Luboff arrangement of Austrian carol Still, Still, Still.

Ezekiel Saw de Wheel features the tenor and bass voices singing four parts, as well as vowel sounds to create the effect of a turning wheel.

Soprano Freida Kimble will sing a solo selection from Handel s Messiah, and Crystal Barnett will sing Glory to the Newborn King.

Accompanying the singers will be Sandra Kellogg on piano and Don Cranon on electric bass.

Smith, who has a master s degree in conducting from Bowling Green State University, was a teacher and administrator in Toledo Public Schools for 35 years.