Chesterton Academy’s Highland Park campus is capping a year of firsts with the free “Lessons & Carols for Christmas” on Friday at Immaculate Conception Parish Center, 770 Deerfield Road.
This is the fledgling private, independent high school’s first Christmas and first holiday concert.
“It’s a great opportunity for the students to build community with Immaculate Conception and Highland Park at this very special time of the year,” said Roy Postel, academy president. “We’re really grateful for that.”
The concert combines scripture from the Old and New Testaments and song to tell the story of the birth of Jesus. Familiar carols will include “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” “Joy to the World,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “Angels We Have Heard on High,” “The First Noel” and “Come All Ye Faithful.”
The program also will feature carols from Czechoslovakia, France, Mexico, Germany and Italy, sung in their original language by the eight-voice Chesterton Academy Chamber Singers.
The multicultural program is illustrative of the academy’s emphasis on the humanities, said music director Michel Domingue, who also serves in the same role at St. Theresa Parish in Palatine.
“It’s good for these kids and meaningful for me,” he said. “Music is considered very important and that’s why I enjoy it here. Choral music is one of the things they stress. They study philosophy and the great books and science, but everybody also has to be in the choir. The whole idea behind (the academy) is to seek something higher, to try a different approach to high school. Lessons and carols is a new custom for them.”
The Highland Park campus, the only one in the Chicago area, is modeled on the flagship school in Edina, Minn, which opened in 2008 with eight students and has more than 120 students. The local school occupies the building on the Immaculate Conception grounds. Its inaugural freshman class has six students.
As the holiday season approaches, Postel reflects on the school’s progress. It recently hosted its first open house.
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“We were able to showcase the school,” he said. “A year ago, we couldn’t do that. We didn’t have a venue. It was just presenting an idea and asking prospective parents to visualize it for themselves. Now we can bring them into the classroom and up and down the halls.”
He expressed gratitude for the families and the benefactors whose financial support has helped make tuition affordable.
“I’m thankful for the patience of my wife,” he said, laughing. “She’s been right there in the car for this roller-coaster ride, which it has been at times.”
For more information about “Lessons and Carols,” call 888-294-9991.
Other area houses of worship offering “Lessons and Carols” include: First Presbyterian Church on Dec. 24, 8:30 p.m., 824 Waukegan Road, Deerfield; Christ Church Crossroads Campus, Sunday at 11 a.m., 1350 Illinois Route 137, Grayslake; and St. Philip the Apostle Church, Dec. 23 at 4:30 p.m., 1962 Old Willow Road, Northfield.