Posted on Nov 30, 2004

Soloists and members of the New World Baroque Orchestra will perform their Annual Family Holiday Concert on Sunday, December 19th at 2:00 P.M. This year’s festive event will be held in the multi-purpose room at Daniel Lewis Middle School, 900 Creston Road, Paso Robles. The concert will feature traditional as well as contemporary songs reflecting the joyous holiday season of Advent and Christmas. The event will also include music and performances celebrating the seasonal traditions of Hanukkah and the Native Californian solstice ceremonies. The New World Baroque Orchestra will be joined in concert by guest singers from Mission San Miguel and St. Rose of Lima Church, students from St. Rose School and children and members of the local Salinan Native-American Tribe. The highlight of the program will be the re-introduction of a beautiful old PASTORELA "Los Pastores - The Shepherd's Play" honoring the Nativity tradition that has been handed down to us. The Pastorela will be performed by the children with all of the old traditional songs that accompany the play, sung in the original Spanish as well as in English. New World Baroque Orchestra Director John Warren said, "We very much encourage families from the Spanish speaking communities to attend - so many of their beautiful holiday traditions will be honored in this festive event. We know from diaries of the Early Mission years that the Pastorela plays were much loved and traditionally performed at our California Missions. In the spirit of the holiday season we are teaching this play to a new generation of children so they may better understand the meaning of Christmas and also to honor the history and traditions of our Franciscan Missions of Alta-California." At the conclusion of this joyous holiday family event everyone attending will be invited to join in with the singing of traditional carols of the season. Admission is free but free-will offerings and donations will be accepted to benefit the Mission San Miguel Restoration Fund and the St. Rose School music programs. For more information, please call (805) 239-3022. Since 1985, The New World Baroque Orchestra has offered lively programs of music, song and dance of the colonial missions, presidios and outposts of Spanish-California and frontier regions of New Spain. Not just concerts, but LIVING historical re-enactments of music and festivals of the Early Mission years. Spectators are not just entertained, but are drawn into the festivities and become a part of the festival to experience for themselves what was so intense and so meaningful to the original colonial inhabitants.