Joy

Frank Wallace writes about his holiday album, Joy, "One of my fondest memories of childhood in California is the Christmas Eve service at our stucco church. We arrived at 11:00pm to miraculous blazing sentinels that stood guard all around the top of the flat-topped building and lined the stairs and benches of the patio. Each of these warm luminarias was nothing but a paper lunch bag with sand and a candle. We would sing carols outside carryied more candles as we exited the service at midnight. Those lights had been all but extinguished by time until some mysterious match rekindled their memory in a new form last November. My annual search for better arrangements of carols became a creative marathon. I spent two months exploring many old carols and writing new ones. Each piece came to me practically in the order you hear here and created a progression of keys, moods and textures that speak of the joy and solitude of winter and the hope of re-birth that the season brings to us. I have chosen music from my childhood, my favorite songs sung on those nights of light, as well as medieval songs to Mary, renaissance part songs, French, Sephardic, English and Catalan folk songs. The story unfolded with little effort on my part. Simple joys... and may peace reign at last, at long last."