December 1st--Chapman's Wassail

Apparently I've been missing out on this annual event that Don and I decided to attend this year. I'd overlooked it before because no one mentioned having gone to it in the past, and it's a little pricey. It's $60.00 a piece, but Don and I felt it was worth it enough to want to treat my brother and sister-in-law to it next year.
I'm not sure if each year is the same, but this year, it began at 6:00 p.m. in the lobby of the Beckman building where we made our presence known and were told our assigned table numbers for the dining room and then waited about 30 minutes in the reception which featured wine, coffee, and wassail with Hor'deurves. As we all waited for the horn to blow that would announce the time for our accent to the 4th floor dining area, people scattered about at tables in the Jazzman Cafe where conversations were interspersed with notes floating from the fingers of the harpest stationed nearby, while others stood at the tall tables in the Beckman lobby where a xylophone (I think that's what these instruments are) duet was taking place.

The reception at the tables in the Jazzman Cafe'.

The Harpest in the Jazzman Cafe'.

Meanwhile, others were content to mingle on their feet...

...and listen to these ladies.


This candelabra was in a corner near the wassail, so was difficult to get a picture of without including a few body parts.

Don and I took up posts near the elevator doors as dinner time neared and were the first to arrive at our table.
One of these lovely ladies in black gowns (Chapman students, all), Anna, will be the server for our table.

When the dinner got underway we moved from a fabulous spinach salad with caramelized nuts and a raspberry vinaigrette (seen below). . .
...to stuffed chicken breasts adorned with plump cranberries and gravy, mashed potatoes, and a kind of finely chopped zucchini ensemble. Sorry. I forgot to photograph the main dish, so here's the table's centerpeice instead.

Between bites Don drilled the retired history professor, Bob, seated on his left, on American History. (Don had seen some interesting shows on the history channel and was pleased at the opportunity to verify their accuracy.)
When the charming student hosts and hostesses were not serving our meal they were traveling in groups caroling to each table. Their voices were beautiful. And I was quite impressed with their ability to sing their parts without being thrown off by the person on either side of them. They were arranged in boy-girl-boy-girl fashion and when I concentrated on each voice it was clear the voice was not duplicating, but rather harmonizing with, the ones beside it. That's always been somewhat of a challenge to me, to avoid suddenly taking off with the soprano's melody playing in my right ear...but maybe when you practice this interspersed multipart singing regularly, you get accustomed to the fact that your voice is so not-that- range, that it isn't even tempting to go there.

Dessert was a little fruit tart which I did manage to squeeze in despite not having been able to finish the main meal. That's me: always save room for dessert!
I believe it was 8:00 p.m. that the concert then began in the Fish Interfaith Chapel. It wasn't difficult to figure out how to get there. We just followed the "yellow brick road" of sorts.

Lights in paper bags lined our path.

And now, "follow the blue marble (?) road...or 'line'", along this hall...

. . . into the chapel. . .

. . . and over to our (un-assigned) seats.

The view straight ahead from our seats.

The concert consisted of an orchestra that at times was accompanied by various choirs that filed in and out. Toward the end the audience was separated into three sections before we sang along with the now combined choirs, supposedly each section competing against the other two. When the Hallelujah finale began members of the audience were invited to go up and join the choir if they liked. It was great to see the enthusiasm of those audience members standing up there with the choir belting their little hearts out...and it still sounded good too.

Below are a few samples of the music program. The first video is of the Women's Choir in the Fish Chapel singing "Angels We Have Heard on High". Holding the camera over my head, made for tired arms and a lack of creative framing but you get the gist (jist?) of it. The program showed just the orchestra doing this piece, so I'm not sure which choir this is, but I think it's the Women's Choir.

The second is the same song (coincidentally), played on the harp at the Reception in the Jazzman Cafe with the hum of chatter in stiff competion.

And the third video is a few moments of the reception's xylophone (?) duet. I'm afraid it is losing it's competition with the ambient thrum.