LEWISTON – Directed by John Corrie, the Bates College Choir performs Benjamin Britten’s popular “Ceremony of Carols” in at 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 15 and 16, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Corrie is the artistic director of the Maine Music Society and a member of the college music faculty. He has directed the Bates choir since 1986.

The choir’s program also includes Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and “Das Cartas,” a piece by Hiroya Miura of the Bates music faculty.

An English composer and conductor, Britten wrote his paean to the Christmas season in March 1942, during a five-week voyage across the North Atlantic as he returned to England from America. He originally created the work as a series of unrelated songs and later organized it into the present 11-movement piece.

Set to a sparing musical fabric of harp and voices, the Middle English texts come from “The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems” and are, for the most part, of 15th- and 16th-century origin.

Admission is free, but tickets are required. For more information, please contact 786-6135 or [email protected].