Alan’s Christmas Post!

Some readers will know that I habitually send a Christmas card with a newly-composed round or canon on it – the material for a ‘do-it-yourself’ performance.  This year’s is attached to this post. (There is some argument as to whether the key signature should be one flat or two).

But this year, it’s been ‘do-it-yourself’ for a great many choral singers, as virtual choir performances proliferate.  So here are three virtual performances of carols of mine, with apologies if you’ve already heard or seen them. Just click on the title to view.

There is a rose tree
A beautifully sung performance of this movement from my cantata ‘O Come Emmanuel’ by father-and-daughter members of the choir of St. Mary’s Hitchin.  

Candle Carol
A newly composed carol written for St. Mary’s Friston, Suffolk. There will be a socially distanced performance by a vocal quartet at their Christmas carol service: on this recording the same quartet is augmented to eight singers, and compiled from the individual tracks and images by Richard Hubbard of Cantus Firmus and InHarmony Suffolk. 

Sing out, Angels! 
I wrote this carol a few years ago for Marie Curie Cancer Care: it’s now been revised, and here it is performed by members of the Bullard family aged from 3 to 73 (the youngest two appearing just for the chorus!). This recording (audio and video) was put together by me. 

I hope you enjoy these. ‘There is a rose tree’ is published by OUP, the other two are currently unpublished.

Very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year!!

4 thoughts on “Alan’s Christmas Post!”

  1. Thank you so much for the unique Christmas greeting and the enigmatic round. I shall send it to my daughter and son in law who are “real” musicians for their verdicts on the key signature! But irrespective of this, let me wish you a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Let us hope that normality is restored.

  2. Thank you so much for sharing these Alan. Made my morning hearing our little family Angels singing out

    Much love to you all.

    Emmie xx

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