As audiences settle in for Staples High School’s Candlelight Concert tonight and tomorrow, they’ll become part of an 84-year tradition.
The Candlelight Concert is timeless. This shot, from 2011, was taken by Lynn U. Miller — a Staples choir member in the early 1970s.
Wonderful music, exceptional performances, the warmth of the holidays — all make “Candlelight” one of Westport’s premier events.
Among the concert’s most anticipated moments is the processional. Holding candles and moving solemnly, the choir sings a lovely, majestic carol.
“Sing We Noel” has become Staples’ own special song. You won’t hear it on the radio, or in church. The sheet music is out of print. It’s so obscure, you can’t even Google it. (The links that come up are not to the “real” one.)
“Sing We Noel” is such a tradition, it must have been sung at the 1st-ever concert — then called “Christmas Candlelight” — in 1940. Right?
Wrong.
John Ohanian
The background of this majestic melody could have been lost forever. But in March of 2015, “06880” reader Linda Frazer emailed Donald Freeman. A resident of Westport for more than 30 years, and a 1967 graduate of Northfield School in Massachusetts, she had a question for him. Freeman is the stepson of John Ohanian, Staples’ music director who organized that inaugural Candlelight concert.
Frazer said that when she was at Northfield, “Sing We Noel” was the processional at their annual Christmas vespers concert. She checked with the archivist at what is now called Northfield Mount Hermon School. He traced the first mention of it back to 1916 (when it was listed as “Dost Thou Remember,” the opening words).
Frazer noted too that Freeman had attended Mount Hermon in the 1950s. (He used the surname Ohanian when he was at Bedford Elementary School. Entering Bedford Junior High, he changed back to his birth name. After 8th grade, he left Westport for boarding school.)
Believing “Sing We Noel” to have been part of Candlelight since 1940, Frazer asked Freeman if he had any older relatives who attended Northfield, and might have inspired Ohanian to bring the song to Staples.
Frazer was right — sort of. It came from the private school — but not when she thought.
Freeman said that Ohanian first heard “Sing We Noel” when he and his wife — who died in September 2014, at 101 — attended a Christmas vespers concert in 1954. Ohanian introduced it the next year.
I can vouch for that. I’ve been privileged — in the days before the 84th anniversary concert — to listen to early recordings. The first time it appears on a record was 1955.
The song sounded as beautiful then as it does now. And though it took 15 years for Ohanian to add “Sing We Noel” to the program, it’s impressive to think that for nearly 70 years, Staples and Northfield share a song that has been lost everywhere else in the world.
BONUS FUN FACT: The rousing “Hallelujah Chorus” that concludes Candlelight was not part of the original program either. Ohanian introduced Handel’s very well-known oratorio in 1954 — the year before he brought “Sing We Noel” here.
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I enjoyed this article. My wife and I lived in Westport for 30 years (1986-2016) and raised our three daughters, all of whom attended Staples High School, and we always went to the candlelight concert every year. It was a wonderful tradition. We have very fond memories of “Sing We Noel”. I would love to introduce it to my UU church in Santa Rosa, CA. You said the sheet music was out of print, but presumably it’s still being used at Staples. Is it copyrighted? Is there any way I can get a copy of it?
While I don’t keep up with her, once in a while I google people I have known in the past and found that Natalie Brundred, a neighbor of ours on High Point Road in Westport in the 1950s, whom I babysat a few times, also belongs to the UU church in Santa Rosa.
Calling out a great poster by Connor Yuan!
I was fortunate to be in John Ohanian’s choir from 1953-56 and remember singing “Sing we Noel”. We went to NYC to record carols for Radio Free Europe. Perhaps that is the recording that was mentioned. Mr. Ohanian always had an eclectic assortment of music for us, some that had never been performed. And it wasn’t always easy to sing. We always finished choir practice with a “seven fold amen” that started spontaneously because we loved it so much. Christmas wasn’t the only time the choir starred. We started what eventually became the drama department when our spring concerts began morphing into show type productions. We even had a real motor cycle ridden around the stage! The Ohanians were wonderful, well loved people and thoroughly appreciated in their time!
Best part of High School. Wonderful memories.
There is a 33 1/3 LP recording of the Long Lots Junior High orchestra and chorus available on ebay dating from 1962. Once on ebay just search “Long Lots Junior High School.”
I was in the Choir at Staples in 1956 and 1957. Every time I even read the words Sing We Noel or Dost thou remember I get tears in my eyes. I will double check I know I have one year’s recording but I may have two, 1956 and 1957. After college and until we moved out of state I would make it home for the annual concert.
I checked and I actually have three recordings, 1956, 1957 and 1958. The labels list what was recorded. If anyone is interested I will post the songs and musical pieces that are on the records. Of Course, all three have Sing We Noel and the Halleigh chorus.
On the Westport Unitarian theme–about 30 years ago I was in the lounge car of a long distance Amtrak train somewhere in flyover country and found myself talking to the retired Unitarian minister from Westport. He relayed that he was the head of the national Unitarian group when it merged with the Universalists. His speech began: “Today we bring together two religions, each of which thinks that one religion is one to many.”
A prominent member of the Universalist sect was P.T. Barnum of Bridgeport. He was involved in the founding of Tufts and insisted the stuffed carcus of his famed elephant Jumbo be displayed in the main building. When the building was destroyed in a fire, many people were not too disappointed.
Dan-O! Everybody wants the lyrics!! Headline next music-featured post with them. Also, nimble master of YT music accompanients (sp?), isn’t there a version you linked to years ago? Re-link as feature in that post. And thankk you from the guy who can’t carry a tune & also the youngster Ohanian yanked the trombone from to hand him a clarinent (All state alto-clarinent 66 — a case of they needed an alto-c).