Email to a friend Printer friendly Font: * * * * The NAC performance will include gospel arrangements of seasonal songs and carols, including I Saw Three Ships, Away in a Manger, Little Drummer Boy, O Come all Ye Faithful, The First NoГ«l and Once in Royal David’s City, arranged by Craig.

To give the performance a gospel sound, the concert will include Richard Wilson on the Hammond B3 organ, the instrument whose sound will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s listened to recordings by Mahalia Jackson and other gospel greats. The show that Craig produced last year has been released on a new CBC Records CD, and Craig has been busy in recent months orchestrating the tunes for what will be the project’s orchestral debut tomorrow.

In his program notes, Craig thanks Daphne Burt, the NAC Orchestra’s manager of artistic planning, for asking Craig to consider repeating the concert with orchestra. “Never let it be said that innovation is lacking in the orchestra world. Daphne’s forward thinking disproves this … I am indebted to her for the challenge and the opportunity,” he writes.

Craig says the challenge of creating arrangements that would comfortably unite gospel music with the classical tradition was “one of the hardest tasks of my career to date” and says only the audience can judge whether the fusion of genres is successful.