Beauty for Ashes
Highlights from the choir’s 2022 recording
Works by Bob Chilcott, Judith Bingham, Michael Berkeley, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, David Lancaster and others
Messiah
Handel’s best loved oratorio (abridged)
Winter Wonderland 2022
Music for the Christmas season
John Tavener: Ex Maria Virgine
and other seasonal fare
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The Elysian Singers’ popular annual Winter Wonderland concert now has a new venue: the beautiful 18th-century church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, right in the centre of London’s West End. But as usual, we shall mix the serious and the fun, the sacred and the secular, to celebrate the Christmas season with all faiths and none.
The first half will comprise a rare complete performance of ‘Ex Maria Virgine’, a Christmas Sequence for choir and organ by the choir’s former patron, Sir John Tavener. The composer has used both familiar and less well-known texts, in a wonderful variety of settings he described as ‘ecstatic, playful, contemplative and tender’.
In the second half, the choir will present a selection of popular carols, both traditional and from the American Songbook, in colourful settings that will both move the heart and lift the spirit!
The first half will comprise a rare complete performance of ‘Ex Maria Virgine’, a Christmas Sequence for choir and organ by the choir’s former patron, Sir John Tavener. The composer has used both familiar and less well-known texts, in a wonderful variety of settings he described as ‘ecstatic, playful, contemplative and tender’.
In the second half, the choir will present a selection of popular carols, both traditional and from the American Songbook, in colourful settings that will both move the heart and lift the spirit!