At the first of the choir's Christmas Festival concerts late Friday afternoon, they started in the choir loft up by that beautiful rose window that looks out onto Hennepin Avenue. But the group soon was wrapping its harmonies around the audience, passing chords from one section of the choir to another in a sonic variation on the wave that's performed in stadiums.

That was one of several imaginative ideas offered on a program that stands out as one of the Twin Cities holiday concert season's ideal destinations for a sense of spiritual renewal. The emphasis of the 26 pieces performed was peace, chiefly of the internal and eternal sorts. And there was something both calming and invigorating about the music that the choir sang so beautifully, their voices complemented by the perfectly simple instrumentation of a harp and an oboe.

This group blankets listeners in the kind of thick, lush harmonies that F. Melius Christiansen helped launch from Northfield's St. Olaf College a century ago, so it's appropriate that his arrangement of 16th-century composer Philipp Nicolai's "Wake, Awake" should be one of the standouts, as was a breathtakingly gentle interpretation of "Christ, the Apple Tree."

But the most memorable experience of the concert doubtless will be the circular sound that wove around the sanctuary on Ola Gjeilo's otherworldly "Kyrie" from "The Spheres." This Norwegian composer is creating some of the most interesting music out there right now, choral or otherwise, and his mystical sound world is something that you should make an effort to experience.

A meditative air wafted through the well- selected program, with beauty to be found around every corner, especially in Gustaf Nordqvist's "Wonderful Peace" and anything from Frank Ferko's "Festival of Carols." Concluding the concert in a narrow chapel behind the sacristy, the choir had covered a lot of ground, both literally and musically.

But they made it all feel like sacred ground.