“Silent Night,” “Feliz Navidad,” “Come All Ye Faithful” and “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” are only a few of the traditional songs carolers will sing this year while going door to door spreading holiday cheer. But here at City College they’ll be doing things a little differently.

Every holiday season City College music lovers rally together to give audiences more than just a yuletide greeting. The music department offers an array of events and among them are performances by the Quire of Voyces, the Holiday College Choir Concert and the ever-popular Electronic Music Concert.

The premiere choral ensemble at City College is the Quire of Voyces. The group was founded in 1993 by Nathan Kreitzer, chairman of the Music Department and director of the ensemble.

“When I moved here from Orange County, there were no good chamber groups in Santa Barbara,” said Kreitzer. “I was looking for something more professional.”

For the past 11 years the ensemble has brought audiences the choral music of Europe with their acapella sound.

With Europe toured, CDs released, awards and critical acclaim won, this is not just your average choir. Even the name stands out.

“Quire of Voyces” is an old English spelling that I found. I wanted a name that reflected our type of Renaissance style,” said Kretizer. “There are few of its kind.”

Kretizer will also be directing the Holiday Choral Concert. The one-hundred-twenty-voice Concert Choir and Chamber singers team together to perform the great choral traditions of American Spiritual and Gospel music.

The Electronic Music Concert has been an annual event varying in content since the late 80’s. Although the event has minimal publicity audiences over the years have been catching on by word of mouth.

There’s no genre for this concert. Students from the Electronic Music and Sound Recording classes here at City College prepare their own “stylistically and electronically diverse” pieces.

“It has everything contemporary I can think of,” said assistant professor and director of the Electronic Music Concert, James Mooy. “It’s the result of all student projects. It ranges from computer music software, techno, rap, hip-hop, styles that haven’t even been coined yet, more traditional unplugged, flat ‘electronica.” Last year, a student chopped and mixed sounds bits from the video game ‘Halo.'”

The concert is not only a reflection of the eclectic taste in music of the students but also our international student body, incorporating different languages ranging from Swedish to Spanish.

“I think concertwise, if people are looking for something different this is it,” said Mooy. “If you just want to hear music this is something different, new, exciting, original and sometimes even annoying.”