Tavener’s Mother & Child was the richest and most majestic piece on the program, but balance issues often found the chorus fighting to be heard against the church’s full-voiced pipe organ. While the choir was ultimately able to make its presence known in the final moments of the piece, the text was consequently lost for much of the louder passages. Another pitfall of the work was the use of a smaller antiphonal choir throughout the work, who were never quite able to land the correct intonation or find the right blend in each of their hushed entrances.

Bruckner’s setting of the Ave Maria played to the group's better attributes. The male voices had a dark timbre that lent itself to the more mysterious moments in Bruckner’s score, and Kerschner’s pacing throughout was poised and fluid.

Another highlight of the first half came from one of the competition’s three finalists, Robert Vuichard. A challenging new setting of We Three Kings of Orient Are, Vuichard's Thy Perfect Light merged the classic carol text with Luke’s biblical account of Jesus’ birth and the Agnus Dei. Filled with asymmetrical rhythms, numerous solos and a buoyant sense of pulse, Vuichard gradually corralled his source material into a number of majestic moments in the work’s second half. After moving along at breakneck speeds, the work ended in a triumphantly lyrical passage, with Vuichard’s voicing expanding the choir to their outer limits of range, thus transforming the chorus into an organ in itself.

Despite the length of the concert, Kerschner and his chorus seemed to save their finest ensemble moments for the second half, with numerous traditional carols highlighting the ensemble’s musical cohesion and energy. Among the remaining competition finalists, Paul Rudoi’s Sing Oh my Heart! fit well with the chorus’ smooth and syrupy tones, while Marie Incontrera’s Ring Out, Wild Bells showed a wealth of rhythmic ideas that never quite came together enough to make a firm musical statement.

The final trio of carols—Silent Night, Judas Land, and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing—ultimately showed an exuberance from the choir that would have been well-received earlier in the program. Perhaps seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, the choristers rang outbeautifully, finally managiong to meet the power of the organ and bringing a well-deserved close to a joyous—if a tad long—ode to holiday cheer.