A Sacred Mission: Cantus Columbus sings the story Christmas in annual concert

by Frank Etheridge

Every year, William J. Bullock, Ph.D., finds a new way to tell an old story.

“I’m a professor at heart, so I really enjoy the research,” Bullock (called Bill by those who know him) says of finding music to fit into Cantus Christmas, an annual highlight of the holiday season in Columbus and gold-star event on the city’s cultural calendar now in its 18th year.

“I start with four parts,” he says of the concert’s rendering of the Christmas story during an interview at Fountain City Coffee in early November, when rehearsals for it begin to kick into high gear.

“The first part is prophecy, the Advent. Second is about the birth. Third is about the Epiphany, with the three kings. The last part is the sacrifice of the innocents, with Herod killing the children and Christ escaping into Egypt. People don’t often include that part, but it really is a big part of the Christmas story. Each section ends with a stand-up carol with the audience, and I always end with ‘Joy the World.’ So I start with those four parts and set out to find music to tell that story and just have fun researching. It gets harder and harder ever year to find new music. It’s a labor of love, but it’s a lot of work.”

Having arrived in town in 1983 to teach music at then-Columbus College, Bullock retired in 2000 as professor and assistant department head at CSU’s Schwob School of Music before retiring as executive director at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts in 2015 at age 70. His inspiration for forming Cantus Columbus—the professional chorus (cantus being a Latin word for voice) he leads each year into the Christmas concert and periodic other performances—came about because he “didn’t’ want to get away from music completely” after he stopped teaching. The group’s first concert was a cappella versions of secular music at the Springer Opera House in spring 2000. Later that year, they performed their first Christmas concert at St. Luke United Methodist Church before moving the following year into its current home in the dazzling, acoustically pristine Legacy Hall.

“It’s always a very inspiring concert, and it’s become quite a tradition here in Columbus,” says Cantus singer and manager Debbie Anderson, a veteran of the 23-member ensemble since its inception, of the Christmas concert, noting that it comes modeled in its breakdown into four parts on the legendary Christmas programs presented by the late, brilliant Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Director Robert Shaw.

“Doctor Bullock is a wonderful programmer and effectively chooses music to the Christmas story in a beautiful way,” Anderson says. “It’s always very exciting to learn what he’s picked out for us for the coming concert, though you have to know your stuff.”

Billed each year as “Music of the Season—Music of the Masters,” Cantus Christmas for the first five or six years largely figured the works of such classical-music composers as Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. “Now maybe we should expand that slogan to say music of important composers,” the affable Bullock says with a laugh.

“While all the major composers of the classical period wrote religious music, they may not have done any Christmas music. Mozart did next to no Christmas stuff. Because in many ways Christmas became what it is today as a promotional thing in America with Santa Claus in the late 1800s. You really have to move into the Romantic period, and a lot of stuff from the Russian Orthodox Church, to find music composed for Christmas.”

Accompanied as always by Bullock’s wife, Janie Lee (who plays with Columbus Symphony Orchestra), on piano, Cantus Columbus this year will be joined by the renowned, Atlanta-based Vega String Quartet.

In addition to the perennial “Joy to the World,” the audience this year will join in for singings of “O Come, O Come Emanuel,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Among the 24 works selected for this year’s concert, Bullock has picked a George Gershwin string quartet lullaby for the Nativity scene and the “Gloria” movement of Schubert’s most famous Mass. Bullock describes two to three numbers as “a bit out there, a little strange sounding,” which arrive free of melody but full of sound, and says he’s curious as to how the audience will respond.

When asked what he wants his audience to feel from Cantus Columbus, Bullock is quite clear.

“From the non-religious side, I want to evoke joy and an experience of good chorus music that’s well performed,” he says. “From the sacred side, I want them to feel deep inside the meaning of Christmas, what it’s really about, and to take away the whole scope of what it means for society. You can come to it either way. You can enjoy the concert as just a concert and hear a wide variety of music you’re not going to hear anywhere else in Columbus, Georgia. I can assure you of that.”

The 18th annual Cantus Christmas concert takes place in the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts’ Legacy Hall on Tuesday, December 19 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets $34.