Cardinal Points

Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: FUSE

Members of the PSUC Gospel Choir perform at a concert last year.

The month of December is rapidly approaching and the beginning of snow flurries can already be seen outside.

Driving through town, you can already spot numerous houses adorned with strings of multicolored lights, lawn fixtures and even a few pine trees in the windows. All of these are signs that the holiday season is once again here.

At Plattsburgh State, the music department is starting off the holiday celebrations with its traditional Soulful Christmas Celebration performance.

This year's Soulful Christmas Celebration is taking place on Sunday, Dec. 2 at 4:30 p.m. in Giltz Auditorium in Hawkins Hall.

Choir adviser Sally Urban said the event will feature a variety of performances by the gospel choir, the step dance team, the praise dance team, and a special guest performance by Nicholas Cassarino.

"The concert will start with the Praise & Worship group which serves as the

warm-up act, and then the full choir of 50-55 singers will come out," Urban said. "Then there will be the Praise Dancers. After intermission, the Step Team will come out, then,

Nicholas Cassarino, our special guest, will sing accompanying himself on guitar. Then the full choir will come out to sing some gospel Christmas songs."

This will be the third annual Soulful Christmas Celebration concert. According to Dexter Criss, the music director, the event stemmed from the traditional fall performance given by the choir each year, and over the last few years they have added the Christmas theme portion of the concert.

"The Gospel choir always gave a fall and spring concert," Criss said. "But for these last three years we have added a Christmas theme by adding Christmas songs into the performance."

According to Criss, the event itself has been in preparation for months, and the various groups involved have been working on their performances all semester.

Gospel is the main theme for the entire evening with each of the performances. The first half of the concert will involve traditional gospel selections performed by the each of the groups.

Criss said the Step Team will be chanting to Gospel lyrics while incorporating traditional dance steps.

The Step Team is one of the two dance teams that will be featured in the second half of the evening, the other being the Praise Dance Team.

Continued...

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