December 2, 2007 Lessons and Carols Service to Feature Brown Choir, Brass, Organ, and Mezzo-Soprano Katherine Bergeron, Dean of College Today, Sunday, December 2, 2007, 4:00 p.m., Sayles Hall Brown University’s Annual Service of Lessons and Carols—now in its ninth decade—will be held today, Sunday, December 2, 2007, at 4:00 p.m., in Sayles Hall, The College Green. This year, the University Chorus, under the direction of Frederick Jodry, and the University Brass, under the direction of Mark Steinbach, will present music for the season by Bach, Balbastre, Boëllmann, Brahms, Buxtehude, Gabrieli, Lauridsen, Poulenc, da Victoria, and Vierne. Steinbach, the University organist, will also perform on Sayles Hall's historic 1903 Hutchings-Votey Organ, and vocalist Katherine Bergeron, Dean of the College and professor of music, will sing Ave Marie by Anton Bruckner. The public is cordially welcome to attend this ancient form of corporate worship for the Christmas season, with readings from the Old and New Testaments. The service was revived for modern use at Truro Cathedral in Cornwall during the late nineteenth century and was made world famous through the broadcasts and recordings of the Kings College Choir, Cambridge University, during the mid-twentieth century. It is now widely used in schools, colleges, and churches around the world. During the service, a free-will offering will be collected to benefit “Keep the Heat On” (KTHO) was started two years ago by the Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, to provide additional support for those who had exhausted all other means of public and private heating assistance. In its first year, KTHO raised over $185,000, which was made available to assist over 380 Rhode Island households with no place left to turn with their oil and gas heating needs. KTHO continues today and donations are made through the Interfaith Dire Emergency Fund. MercyCorps is working to bring relief to millions of Bangladeshi families displaced by the Cyclone Sidr. On November 15, this Category Four storm left nearly 3,200 people dead, destroyed over 1 million homes, and caused wide- spread infrastructural damage. MercyCorps is helping colleague organizations on the ground to deliver much-needed assistance to what the government says are 7 million cyclone-affected survivors. For more information about KTHO visit, www.heatri.com; for MercyCorps, visit www.mercycorps.org. The Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life and the Music Department are the sponsors of this service. For more information, call 401.863.2344. Image: "After the Storm," Courtesy of the Brown's Friends of the Library. Image available as a card for purchase. Visit, www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/friends/