St Albans Chamber and Abbey Girls Choirs at St Saviour’s Church
A CONCERT for Advent brings together St Albans Chamber Choir with the Abbey Girls Choir for the first time next Saturday, December 3.
The centrepiece of the concert at St Saviour’s Church will be a performance of Britten’s A Boy was Born, written when the composer was only 19.
The work is a set of choral variations using texts from old English poems and carols and includes an atmospheric setting of In the Bleak Midwinter.
Rarely performed because of its difficulty, the composition is scored for adult choir in four to eight parts together with a unison children’s choir, sung by the Abbey Girls Choir.
Formed in 1996, the Girls Choir is now regarded as one of the finest ensembles of its type in the UK. In addition to the Britten, they will be performing settings of Christmas texts by Warlock, Howells and Vaughan Williams, conducted and accompanied from the piano by their director Tom Winpenny.
The Chamber Choir will also be singing John Tavener’s Hymn to the Mother of God and contrasting settings of Hodie Christus natus est by Palestrina and Poulenc and O Magnum Mysterium by Gabrieli and Poulenc.
The concert opens with the premiere of choir member Nicholas Hare’s carol Welcome Redemption’s Dawn and closes with the spirited arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas by Andrew Carter.
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Tickets at �13 (�1 for children/students) are available by telephoning 07570 454744, email tickets@stalbanschamberchoir.org.uk, online at www.allaboutstalbans.com or on the door.
