A heavenly program for Christmas

Early music ensemble Cappella Clausura presents ''Gloria: A Renaissance Christmas Pageant'' tomorrow night in Newton in collaboration with a city-based troupe, Creationdance. (Martha Bancroft)

The sounds of heaven are just one click away. Really. Go to www.clausura.org/sulpitiacesisconsuors.php, select the first music track, "Stabat Mater," and as the airy Renaissance harmonies of Cappella Clausura float into the room be sure to shield your eyes - lest they be brushed inadvertently by angel wings.

Of course, heard live this mostly early music ensemble based in Newton is even more transportive, and this weekend they present their most ambitious program of the year in four Greater Boston venues, including at 8 p.m. tomorrow at First Unitarian Society in Newton, 1326 Washington St.

"Gloria: A Renaissance Christmas Pageant" tells the story of the Nativity via rarely heard works written by long-overlooked women composers. They are sung by the group's masterful eight-voice choir and set to music played on period instruments.

Adding to the spectacle, performers from a Newton troupe, Creationdance, interpret each piece, at times incorporating giant puppets fashioned by a retired Weston art teacher.

"You really cannot hear this music anywhere else, and it's just incredible music," said Cappella Clausura's founder and director, Amelia J. LeClair. "The medieval pieces have the same kind of soothingness that Celtic, drone-y Irish music has. The Renaissance pieces have harmonies that are so beautiful and inevitable that you feel the melody just couldn't go anywhere else but where it goes. It just kind of flows. And the Baroque works get close to opera, with melodies written for trained voices. So each style has a different hook to it."

Much of the program is music born of oppression. Cappella Clausura specializes in works written by cloistered 16th- and 17th-century Italian nuns, who at varying times were forbidden to make or write music. But Rome's edicts were often ignored. Great talents behind the cloister walls wrote many exceptional works that surged with religious and romantic passion. Most were then lost to history, until scholars like LeClair began deciphering their notations and performing them. The religious themes fit well with the Nativity story, so the troupe created a Christmas pageant.

"So much of their work is a paean to the Virgin Mary because that was the role model for women at the time because she was the only famous woman who wasn't evil. The only other woman they talked about was Eve," said LeClair.

Bringing the music of these nuns to 21st-century ears is no small feat. LeClair has to transcribe ancient notations into a modern score for most works. Many only hint at the instrumentation, so LeClair adds instruments such as harp and vielle (an early violin) by feel. Choral pieces published in the era were usually scored for an all-male choir, so LeClair must also create new arrangements for her all-female ensemble.

"After all that, when I hear these really talented singers singing the way I've always heard the music in my head, it's like nothing else," said LeClair. "It's the reason I live."

Usually, the group performs alone, but for the Christmas pageant Creationdance was asked to provide choreography. Three professional dancers and five students from Newton, ages 11 to 14, perform the ballet-inspired works.

"The dance has a very spiritual depth. To me, it feels timeless," said Creationdance's artistic director, Helena Froehlich, who is a native of France living in Newton. "Usually dance is very fast, but this piece is much more connected with the deep energy of the universe."

Froehlich's background is in ballet and modern dance, and while she performs and choreographs internationally, the pageant's early music works posed new challenges for her.

"The music is very intricate and much more complicated than the usual ballet music that is often in 3-4 and 4-4 time," she said. "Often it has several voices superimposed and starting at different times with five voices singing at the same time. So I studied the music very carefully, and began counting in a different way so I could make sense of it, in the melodic sense for dancers. To me, it's like solving puzzles."

The final flourish of the program is the creation of Newton artist Martha Bancroft, who built giant papier-mâché puppets of the three wise men.

"I took my inspiration from commedia dell'arte, which was this form of Renaissance Italian theater that sometimes used enormous puppets that were huge heads mounted on poles," said Bancroft, who taught art in the Weston schools for 32 years before recently retiring. "I don't think anyone realized my puppets would turn out so big. They stand about six feet tall. But because of their size, they became kind of magical and they added a whole new dimension to the pageant."

Guests who are moved to join in the singing will also be encouraged. The show concludes with hymns sung by churchgoers in 14th-century Florence called laude, as in praise. LeClair will teach the audience a hallelujah laude for the sing-along finale.

"We end it all with these wonderful laude," said LeClair. "They're basically hymns that had refrains that were simple enough that people could sing along with them, but this being Florence they also had verses sung by trained soloists that were very complex. So they're pretty cool because the soloists can just go to town and the congregation can join in."

"Gloria: A Renaissance Christmas Pageant" will be performed 8 p.m. tomorrow at the First Unitarian Society in Newton, 1326 Washington St., www.fusn.org; 2 p.m. Saturday at First Parish in Bedford, 75 Great Road, www.uubedford.org; 8 p.m. Saturday at St. Andrew's Church, 135 Lafayette St., Marblehead, www.standrewsmhd.org; and 4 p.m. Sunday at First Parish in Cohasset, 23 North Main St., www.firstparishcohasset.org. Tickets: $15, $12 seniors; in Bedford, $20 adults, $15 seniors. 617-964-6609; www.clausura.org; info@clausura.org.

HOLIDAY FUN FOR ALL: Two theater troupes are putting on a two-part show Saturday in Newton to aid local charities and add a little Broadway-style cheer to the holidays.

Turtle Lane Playhouse and the Alexander Children's Theater School, which performs in various venues across the region, start the festivities at 1 p.m. with their "Family Holiday Party," featuring visits with Santa, crafts, games, stories, and sing-alongs, as well as solos by KISS 108's Rich DiMare and Lisa Donovan.

At 8 p.m., "'Tis the Season: A Holiday Benefit Concert" for grown-ups serves up holiday and Broadway tunes sung by talents including Kendra Kachadoorian, who recently soloed with the Boston Pops and is appearing at Turtle Lane Playhouse as the Witch in "Into the Woods." The evening includes a fund-raising raffle.

Guests for the family party are asked to bring new, unwrapped toys to donate to ABCD Boston, while evening concertgoers are asked to bring a canned or boxed food item for donation to the Greater Boston Food Bank.

"Family Holiday Party" is 1-4:30 p.m. Saturday at Turtle Lane Playhouse, 283 Melrose St., Newton. Tickets: $10 in advance per child (free admission for one parent accompanying children); $15 at door. Includes free photo with Santa if a child brings a toy donation. " 'Tis the Season" concert is 8 p.m. at the playhouse. Tickets: $25 in advance; $30 at door, or $25 with a food donation. 617-244-0169, www.turtlelane.org.

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