As it has for nearly five decades, the Sippican Choral Society of Marion will hold its annual Christmas concert on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 4:00 p.m. in Tabor Academy’s Wickenden Chapel.

The theme for the 49th annual concert is "Tidings of Comfort and Joy."

Sippican Children’s Chorus, under the direction of Leslie Piper, will again join the chorus.

The chorus will open the concert with “Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Gates” by Andreas Hammerschmidt, followed by Haydn’s “Qui Sedes,” which is based on the first two verses of Psalm 80. Additionally, the repertoire will include some familiar Christmas music, such as “God Rest You Merry Gentlemen,” and “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.”

As always, the audience will have the chance to sing along with the chorus on several familiar Christmas carols.

The following Monday evening, Dec. 8, about 40 members of the chorus will sing selections from the concert at the Sippican Long Term Health Care Center in Marion.

Now in its 49th season, the 80-member Sippican Choral Society is under the direction of Brian Roderick, with Michelle Gordon of Mattapoisett as its accompanist. The group performs at least two concerts every year, singing the works of the world’s great composers, as well as contemporary music.

Beginning with the spring concert in April, the chorus will be celebrating 50 years of providing classical and popular music to audiences along the South Coast. That concert will be a joint one with the Tri-County Symphonic Band, reminiscent of the chorus’s first concert in 1965.

Tickets for this year’s Christmas concert are $15 each ($7 for children under 18), and are now available at The Bookstall in Marion, the Symphony Shop in Dartmouth, the Euro in Fairhaven and No Kidding in Mattapoisett’s Ropewalk. Chorus members and parents of the children’s chorus members also have tickets for sale. A limited number will be available at the door. Doors at Wickenden Chapel on Spring Street in Marion will open at 3:30 pm.

For further information about these concerts, contact Peter McDonald at 508-748-0286 or via email at peterconversemcdonald@gmail.com.