On Monday, Nov. 11, at their first weekly rehearsal after Election Day, Christian Clark, artistic director and conductor of the 75-voice Central Oregon Mastersingers spoke directly to the choir about the elephant in the room. Given its weekly rehearsal schedule, the choir only convenes about 10 times in person before it performs each concert publicly. And for “Festival of Carols,” they had to get on the same page, or in this case sheet music, after a pretty dramatic election cycle.

“I thought there was really no choice,” he said. “I just started off letting them know that there are people in this room that don’t feel the same way about the results that you feel. I just made it very clear that I have friends in this room who are hopeful and happy with the results, and friends in this room who are devastated.”

Unifying power of music

This weekend, the Mastersingers will present their “Festival of Carols” concert, performing the program at 7 p.m. Saturday and again at 2 p.m. Sunday.

“Monday nights are a retreat for us. I encourage folks to come in and leave their baggage at the door. We come in and make music together,” Clark said. “We regularly start rehearsals by sort of centering ourselves, closing our eyes and letting go of the things that happened before rehearsal. He continued his speech to the choir’s troops by reminding them, “We all come together on Monday nights because we can all agree on the transformative power of music. … Talk about the music instead. Find someone in the choir you don’t normally talk to in the choir and say, ‘Hey, what’s your favorite carol?’”

There was relief and laughter after his wise words, which helped the choir get down to the business of rehearsing for its performances at the Tower Theatre.

This year’s theme is “Festival of Carols,” made up of a suite of international carols. Last year’s concert program was a new piece of music based on Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” replete with spooky sounds and narration in addition to some carols, and on the whole, a departure from the type of holiday program Mastersingers normally does.

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“From the get-go of planning this year I (wanted) to make sure we get back to familiar carols, things that we know the audience is really going to appreciate,” Clark said.

Just as the election year affected his interaction with the choir, the fact that it’s an election year also informed the concert program.

“It also fed into my choosing of this music. It’s familiar music. It’s going to make people feel comforted, even if it’s just for that couple of hours sitting in the Tower Theatre. I hope that we can all come together and just enjoy the music.”

Familiar carols

The concert opens with German and French carols, then heads east, with the choir singing “in Polish, Czech and a whole bunch of other languages that most of us have never sung in before,” Clark said.

Things then move through carols from the British Isles. One of the Mastersingers’ favorite pieces is “Deck the Halls” sung in Welsh. Central and South America are also represented, as are Mexico and Puerto Rico, and finally, the U.S. and Canada.

“It just really covers the gamut of traditional holiday tunes,” Clark said. “It’s really exciting.”

The Tower stage will be bursting with sound, as the concert includes a 26-piece orchestra, many of whom play with the Central Oregon Symphony, accompanying the singers.

‘It’s Carnegie Hall’

“I have said from the stage, for the last feels like 10 years, that I don’t think it’s Christmas till the Mastersingers sing,” said Ray Solley, executive director of the Tower Theatre Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the Tower, whose holiday season offerings the Mastersingers have long been a part of.

“They come on and they set the tone, they set the mood,” he said. “The level of professionalism in that group is so far beyond its roots. It’s wonderful. It’s teachers. It’s singers. It’s real estate people. It’s retirees. They get up on that stage, and it’s Carnegie Hall.”

In addition to its weekend concert, the Mastersingers will host its “Messiah” Community Sing-Along at 3 p.m. Dec. 21 at Nativity Lutheran Church in Bend and 3 p.m. Dec. 22 at Sunriver Christian Fellowship. For more information on concerts and the choir, visit centraloregonmastersingers.org.

If You Go

What: Central Oregon Mastersingers present “Festival of Carols”

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: Tower Theatre, 835 NW Wall St., Bend

Cost: $44-$54, plus Historical Preservation fee

Contact: towertheatre.org