One artistic center
The performance remains the center while classes, workshops, rehearsals, and conversations approach the same work from different disciplines.
For campuses
Let the disciplines collide around one living work.
Choir, chamber music, jazz, improvisation, sacred text, theology, and the voices of children occupy one form. The campus does not need to divide them back into departments.
A concert opening into campus life
Let one concert open several campus conversations.
Sacred text, children’s voices, choral practice, chamber writing, jazz, and improvisation occupy one body. A campus can enter from many edges without dividing the work back into departments.
One concert can open into rehearsal, study, and conversation across a Catholic university, arts series, school of music, theology or humanities program, sacred-music institute, campus ministry, or interdisciplinary arts initiative. Any residency remains open until its people, time, and learning questions give it shape.
Meaningful student participation
Student or faculty performers may enter approved roles, and a campus or community children’s choir can become the living center of the work.
Several doors into the same work
Performing arts, music, theology, humanities, campus ministry, and community engagement can each enter the score from a different edge.
Forms in time
Let the work continue beyond the concert
A rehearsal, class, workshop, meal, or theological conversation can extend the same inquiry without turning the visit into a menu of unrelated activities.
One night at the center
A focused visit centered on the evening performance and the rehearsals needed for its chosen performing body.
- Performance
- Local ensemble rehearsal
- Brief artist talk or post-concert conversation by agreement
Two days around the score
A proposed short residency combining the concert with one or more student-facing activities.
- Composition or improvisation workshop
- Choral rehearsal or workshop
- Class visit or artist talk
A longer campus orbit
A proposed campus-wide frame connecting performance, student participation, theology and the arts, and community engagement.
- Concert and student participation
- Theology-and-the-arts discussion
- Campus ministry or sacred-music collaboration
- Community children’s choir partnership
Who holds the room
Who might enter the work from another discipline?
The most alive campus encounters begin when several communities recognize that the same score is asking each of them a different question.
- University performing-arts series
- School or department of music
- Choral, jazz, composition, and conducting programs
- Theology, religious studies, and humanities
- Campus ministry and sacred-music programs
- Interdisciplinary arts and community-engagement initiatives
Bodies for the work
Who carries the music into the room?
The performing body, local artists, rehearsal process, and any time around the concert are shaped after the invitation. Scores and licensing are available on request.
01The work takes root
Made with a local children’s choir
A prepared local children’s choir becomes the center of the encounter. The adult ensemble is formed from traveling and locally rooted artists.
- Held by the place
- The local choir partnership, venue, approved local artists, and production support established in advance.
- Carried by the artist team
- J.J. Wright in the agreed leadership role, plus the traveling bass and drum artists and any other contracted touring personnel.
02The work arrives intact
The adult ensemble travels
J.J. Wright, the four adult soloists, winds, strings, bass, and drums cross the distance together and meet the children’s choir inside the score.
- Held by the place
- The prepared local children’s choir, venue, and production support unless otherwise agreed.
- Carried by the artist team
- The complete contracted adult artistic ensemble and agreed artistic leadership.
03The score changes hands
Made entirely in place
A local company inhabits the complete work under an approved license. J.J. Wright can enter as pianist, conductor, music director, coach, or residency artist.
- Held by the place
- The licensed performance, local artistic personnel, preparation, venue, and production.
- Carried by the artist team
- Licensed materials, agreed artistic guidance, and J.J. Wright’s participation when contracted.
04The room becomes material
Light, image, and amplified space
Any performing constellation can expand through designed light, discreet amplification, and projected image, developed as artistic materials in their own right.
- Held by the place
- The approved venue systems, operators, crew, and production infrastructure.
- Carried by the artist team
- The artistic brief, approved media, and any separately contracted production personnel.
Production colophon
The vision has weight, dimensions, and a call time.
The work needs precision without forcing every choir, hall, and constellation of artists into the same blueprint.
Open the production colophonTime, bodies, stage, light, materials, and advance
Duration and program order
Approximately 40–45 minutes. “Gabriel’s Message” is an optional opening and must be confirmed in the final program order.
Standard forces
Children’s choir; four adult soloists; flute; clarinet doubling bass clarinet; bassoon; string quartet; piano, bass, and drums; conductor or music director.
Artistic leadership
J.J. Wright may serve as pianist, music director, conductor, or a combination of those roles.
Touring and local personnel
Bass and drums travel for artist-led productions. The four adult soloists, winds, and strings may travel or be hired locally.
Confirmed during advanceFinal personnel, approvals, travel party, and local-hire responsibilities are confirmed in the engagement agreement.
Children’s choir preparation
The children’s choir is a principal ensemble and must arrive prepared for its first rehearsal with the traveling artists.
Confirmed during advanceChoir profile, preparation schedule, local leadership, rehearsal plan, chaperones, safeguarding, and guardian permissions are established before the engagement.
Orchestration
A reduced orchestration is difficult but may be possible only by advance arrangement.
Confirmed during advanceNo reduction, reorchestration, excerpt, or substitution is authorized without written approval.
Materials and licensing
Scores, parts, performance materials, and licensing are available on request.
See how the work travels Download PDF
A form-specific stage plot is issued after the choir count, personnel, and venue drawings are confirmed.
Afterimages
What stayed with the listeners.
National coverage and close criticism register different traces of the work’s musical and sacred life.
The Irish Times
“A contemporary choral work that is imbued with the true meaning of Christmas.”Read the review NPR · Weekend Edition
‘O Emmanuel’ Composer Mixes In Jazz To Provide ‘Respite’ Within Traditional Hit
Listen to the NPR feature All About Jazz“The sheer warmth, wonder, and innocence of Christmas.”Read the review
Invitation
Tell us what might collide on your campus
Tell us which campus partners, ensembles, courses, and community relationships might be part of the conversation, even if the final scope is not yet known.
Begin before the final shape is known.
Begin with the season, the place, and the people you hope to gather. The performing body can follow in conversation.