Season’s greetings from MSU musicians

This past weekend, musicians from all over campus came together at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church to ring in the new season. A staple of Bozeman culture, the Noël! Concert has delighted Bozemanites for almost a decade  with its impressive chorale arrangements, full orchestra and organ feature. 

In past years, the Friday night show has sold out almost instantly. This year, the performers graciously put on two full-length performances back to back to accommodate even more audience members. 

It isn’t a surprise that the event is so loved across Bozeman. Not only did the DISCo boast a variety of strong musicians, but the concert venue is a spectacle in itself. The Holy Rosary Catholic Church has been an architectural staple of Bozeman for over a century now. According to the Historical Society of Montana, construction for the building was finished in 1908. 

A magnificent edifice of granite, the Gothic-style church is decorated with a gorgeous array of delicate stained glass windows, paintings of other religious buildings in the form of a timeline across the ceiling of the church and, of course, the massive organ that is a show-stopping centerpiece. 

“As a musician, it can be hard to have so many things to listen to at once because it echoes so much, but it’s such an overwhelming experience to hear the sound and see the crowd's reaction– it’s wonderful,” Brooke Dunnagan, a senior directed interdisciplinary student at MSU and a member of the Voces Luminis, a local choir, said. The three choirs that performed this weekend at the Holy Rosary were Voces Luminis, University Chorale and The Montanans. 

The concert also highlighted just how many of the performers are from the Bozeman area. One such performer is Annika Gao, a junior studying cell biology and neuroscience. “I’ve been playing with the symphony for three years now and playing violin in general since I was six,” Gao said. Gao plays for the MSU Symphony Orchestra of the School of Music, directed by Tobin Stewart. 

Stewart has been conducting the Symphony for 12 years now and this year he’s especially excited for the program. “It’s set up like a collage concert, which basically means you move from one piece to the next without a break,” Stewart said. 

“We’re starting from Rimsky Korsakov’s Christmas Eve Suite. It’s a pretty loud, exciting procession of a movement,” Stewart said. 

Between the vocalists that are constantly moving around the church, the massive orchestra and the church’s acoustics, the students put on a spectacular show. “The students have limited time in the church to get used to the acoustic, but it always comes together in the end. It’s a stressful time for students, but it’s a pretty fun concert to do,” Stewart said. 

The MSU School of Music has put on a spectacular performance to ring in the holiday season every year since 2015. If you weren’t able to make it out this year, keep it on your calendar for 2024.