A Mexican Christmas

Music from the Convent and Cathedral of Puebla

Our beloved holiday tradition returns! This December, The Newberry Consort returns to its roots with a new program of festive holiday music from Mexico. Curated by Newberry Consort Artistic Director Liza Malamut in collaboration with musicologists Paul Feller-Simmons and Ireri Chavez-Bárcenas, this program will feature joyous villancicos and lush sacred polyphony from the convent and cathedral of Mexico for voices, winds, plucked instruments, and percussion.

The concerts will feature sights and sounds for everyone. A one-to-a-part women’s choir featuring Estelí Gomez, Salomé Sandovál, Lucía Mier y Teran Romero, Gabrielle Timofeeva López, and Victoria Marshall sings the beautiful polyphony of the Puebla convent, joined by Newberry Consort fan favorites Matthew Dean and Eric Miranda for the large-scale cathedral music.

The singers are joined by a fabulous Baroque band featuring Dušan Balarin and William Simms (guitars, vihuela, theorbo), Rachel Begley (bajón, recorders), Andrés Guzman and Liza Malamut (sackbuts), Anna Steinhoff (viola da gamba), Javier Saume Mazzei (percussion), and Jacob Reed (chamber organ).

The concert also features a beautiful backdrop of historical imagery and bilingual translations by Newberry Consort projection artist and historian Shawn Keener. A pre-concert discussion panel will be led by artistic director Liza Malamut and musicologists Paul Feller-Simmons and Ireri Chavez-Bárcenas.

Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 4:00 PM

Murphy Auditorium at the Driehaus Museum

50 East Erie Street, Chicago, IL 60611

Seating will open at 3:10pm. Our pre-concert talk will begin at 3:15, and the concert will begin at 4:00.