With the uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving now in the rearview mirror, the road ahead is bursting with Christmas concerts. Many will be right here in Chestnut Hill, while others are being led by local musicians who live in Chestnut Hill.

Piffaro, Philadelphia’s world-famous Renaissance Band, will launch the holiday season of concerts in Chestnut Hill. “Ein Kind Geborn,” a German Christmas with Tenet Vocal Artists, is scheduled for four “in-person” performances this year. The Chestnut Hill concert will be 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 6, at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin’s Lane. Additional performances include the first in the series set for Thursday, Dec. 4, at 7:30 p.m., in St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church in Manhattan. The second will be Friday, Dec. 5, at 7:30 p.m., in the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, in Center City. A final performance is set for Sunday, Dec. 7, at 3 p.m., in the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington.

Piffaro invites its audiences to step away from the commercial bustle of the season and into the warm, joyful sounds of a Renaissance Christmas in the multitude of German kingdoms, principalities, duchies and free cities that characterized the center of Europe before 1870 and the unification of Germany. Music by Michael Praetorius, Melchior Franck, Johannes Eccard, Johan Hermann Schein, Joachim a Burck and Michael Altenburg will be sung and played by Tenet Vocal Artists and Piffaro’s merry band of Renaissance musicians.

For ticket information, visit piffaro.org or call 215-235-8469.

Choral Arts Philadelphia

Chestnut Hill’s Donald Meineke, artistic director of Choral Arts Philadelphia, will conduct the choir in two holiday concert programs. The first, “Carols by Candlelight,” is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 6, at 4 and 7 p.m., at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square. The second, “New Year’s Eve Celebration,” will present a rendition of George Frideric Handel’s immortal oratorio, “Messiah,” Wednesday, Dec. 31, at 4 p.m., again at Holy Trinity Church.

Meineke is also the organist/music director of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Locust Street in Center City. St. Mark’s is a leading “High Church” Episcopal parish in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Meineke will lead a “Procession of Advent Lessons and Carols” Sunday, Dec. 7, at 4 p.m. The church’s professional choir will sing a vast selection of classic Advent music.

For ticket information visit choralartsphila.org or saintmarksphiladelphia.org.

Historic Lessons and Carols

Although the traditional “Nine Lessons and Carols” has become securely associated with the BBC’s annual broadcast of the service from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge University, that event only began in 1928. The formal service, itself, was first celebrated in 1880 at Truro Cathedral, in the Duchy of Cornwall (the preserve of the reigning Prince of Wales), by Anglican Bishop Edward White Benson on Christmas Eve at midnight.

Although “Lessons and Carols” remains a distinctly Anglican (Episcopalian in our country) service, its popularity has become so great that other churches often schedule the service during the season of Advent, the Sundays leading up to Christmas day. For instance, St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church (Dominican), located on 20th Street between Locust and Spruce Streets in Center City, will celebrate an “Advent Lessons and Carols” Sunday, Dec. 14, at 4 p.m.

For those of us in Philadelphia for whom a journey to either Truro Cathedral or King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, isn’t on the schedule, a touch of the historic can be enjoyed by attending “Advent Lessons and Carols,” at 5 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 7, at Old Christ Church, 2nd and Market Streets in Old City. The parish of Christ Church dates back to 1695. The congregation was the first Anglican church established in Philadelphia under the jurisdiction of the bishop of London. Its services were attended by many of the framers of both the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution.

Music director and organist Parker Kitterman will conduct Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata No. 61: “Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland” (Now Comes the Savior of the Nations) along with carol arrangement by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Alice Parker, among others.

For more information visit christchurchphila.org.

Lyric Fest

Although not particularly “Christmas-y” in theme, Lyric Fest will present “Fascinating Rhythm: Gershwin As He Played It” Saturday, Dec. 6, at 3 p.m., in the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, and Sunday, Dec. 7, at 3 p.m. in the American Philosophical Society’s Benjamin Franklin Hall in Old City.

Lyric Fest was founded and is directed by Chestnut Hill pianist Laura Ward and mezzo-soprano Suzanne DuPlantis. Composer Logan Skelton has assembled a program based on historic recordings by George Gershwin, himself.

For ticket information visit lyricfest.org.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.