Hartsville, SC — The Coker Singers, the premiere choral ensemble of Coker College, will perform two Vespers concerts for the Christmas season. The first concert will be at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Darlington, SC, at 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 30, followed by a performance at 7 p.m. on Sunday, December 7 at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Hartsville, SC. Admission is free.

The Coker Singers are directed by Dr. William Carswell, assistant professor of music, and accompanied by Sarah Carlson, an adjunct music professor at the college. Among the Christmas music the Singers will perform is Let All Mortal Flesh, arranged by John Ferguson, Handel’s Awake the Trumpet’s Lofty Sound, Mendelssohn’s Lift Thine Eyes, Mozart’s Alleluia, and Rutter’s What Sweeter Music, as well as popular classics, such as Silent Night, arranged by Rhonda Polay, and Deck the Halls, arranged by James McKelvy.

Founded in 1908, the Coker Singers is a select group of music majors, minors and students at large. The choir gives several performances a year as the official choral performing organization of Coker College. In addition to local concerts, the Coker Singers have performed in Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Washington, D.C., and throughout the Carolinas. The group has collaborated with the Hartsville Civic Chorale and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. This spring, the Coker Singers will give concerts in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, and Carnegie Hall in New York.

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