Contributed
The NCU orchestra in performance at last year's 'Feast of Lights' celebration.
The Northern Caribbean University (NCU) Concert Choir and Steel Pan Orchestra, hosted by the university's South Florida Alumni Chapter, will be performing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, this December.
The university, which is owned and operated by the West Indies Union Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, will be hosting its annual musical feast, the - Feast of Lights - at the Fort Lauderdale War Memorial Auditorium on Saturday, December 13, at 6:30 p.m. This is the first time that the NCU Feast of Lights is being taken outside of Jamaica, where many more people will be able to share in this delightful and inspiring experience.
The university's music ambassadors will then perform on December 14 at the university's main campus, located some 2,000 feet above sea level in Mandeville, Manchester.
Northern Caribbean University has, over its 100-year history, produced numerous award-winning graduates from its music department under the auspices of the College of Arts and General Studies, which is now headed by Dr Marilyn Anderson. The university has come to be known in Jamaica and further afield for not just good, but excellent music.
This event will also feature musical presentations from the world-travelled and talented New England Youth Ensemble from Colombia Union College with conductor Dr Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse and an art exhibition from the NCU's visual art department, headed by Mr Gerald Wray.
The university will also be using this occasion to award two accomplished individuals who have dedicated their lives to enriching art and culture and have made outstanding contributions to these areas. These persons are Olive Lewin, PhD and Gerald Wray, MFA.
The Feast of Lights is an annual celebration hosted by NCU in December to herald the Christmas holidays. This event has ancient Jewish roots and was first staged at the then West Indies College (now Northern Caribbean University) by Mrs Zenobia Davis in 1969, who was the chair of the music department.
Davis says that the event started as a gift to the community at Christmas time and involved all the choirs on the campus, including the West Indies College Preparatory School Choir, The Cherubs. The major attraction was the lighted candles carried by the choir members as they sang and marched down the aisle to the stage. The marching with lights is used as the introduction and the conclusion of the event.
This year marks the 39th staging of the Feast of Lights. Throughout the years, NCU has largely preserved the event in its original form.
Slavery
The Feast of Lights really represents the confluence of several strands of symbolism. Conditions in pre-independent, Greek-controlled Judea were almost equivalent to slavery. In addition to severe restrictions on civil liberties, religious freedom was also non-existent. Worship of Yahweh was banned and nonconforming priests were murdered in the temple. Pigs were sacrificed at the altar in contravention of Jewish custom and mothers who allowed their babies to be circumcised were executed with their babies tied to their bodies.
The successful resistance started by Mattathias and his sons led to open conflict and, eventually, the crucial victory of the Jewish forces in 164 B.C., which, at last, secured national independence and established the Hasmonean dynasty as kings in secular rulership and as high priests in the Jerusalem temple to great acclaim among the people, though this euphoria was not to last.
A rite of purification and rededication was then established in a ceremony called Hanukah, or Feast of Lights, giving the opportunity for a fresh start in the observance of the time-honoured values of the ancient spiritual culture, and free worship of God in an ambience of freedom.
