Christmas
Last week we were on holiday on the beautiful Fife Coast, where it never seems to get dark in these summer months (see image). And I don’t think Christmas was ever in my thoughts, until my wife Jan said to me, after the summer solstice, that Christmas was now getting nearer again! And indeed, for those involved with choirs, Christmas never really goes away: this week I had a hire request for a set of copies of A Feast for Christmas, ready for autumn rehearsals (so if you need hire copies get your request in too!): and I heard that my carol Sweet babe, sang she had just been recorded by Andrew Earis’s St Martin’s Voices for their Christmas album with Resonus CDs – and also that the same piece has been programmed by The Sixteen for their Christmas concert at Cadogan Hall. And there is nothing more pleasing than having one’s own musical dots taken up by different choirs and hearing each choir’s particular ‘take’ on it.
Another recent carol of mine, Lie still and slumber, has just been published, too. This was first performed last Christmas by Vivamus, director Rufus Frowde, at St Clement Danes, London.
Organ Music
Ten years ago I had hardly any organ pieces to my name – but now there are about forty! – you can see a list here: The most recent are a prelude on Slane, just published by Church Organ World in Be Still for the Presence, volume 2; (recording here) and a prelude and a postlude on Veni Creator Spiritus (see Newsletter 16 – recording here). The Veni Creator Spiritus pieces are not yet published but you can get copies from me.
Many of my organ preludes are in the nine volumes of the Oxford Hymn Settings for Organists series, and I was also privileged to be co-editor of the last two volumes. And recently, the editor of all nine volumes, Rebecca te Velde, was over from the United States, and Oxford University Press hosted a little celebration – with cake – of the publication of the complete box set., following which Rebecca and I met up with the original co-editor David Blackwell, for a delightful lunch at a riverside pub in nearby Wolvercote.
Mindfulness
I wrote about this in the last issue, and Jan and I are continuing to grapple with adding not-too-difficult calm and meditative pieces to our piano series.
Music with the ‘mindfulness’ tag is a very popular option currently, and writing it is an interesting challenge: but we are enjoying the task and hope to have something positive (and calming) to show before too long.
New and Old
As well as writing new pieces, I’ve been spending time looking out some of my older pieces and making them available again. One piece that I recently came across was a setting for unaccompanied choir of the sixteenth-century mystical poem That Virgin’s Child – suitable for Passiontide services or concert performance. While editing and revising it, it also occurred to me that it would make an effective solo song – so that version is now available too.
And I’ve recently done quite a lot of arrangements, including a bunch of piano accompaniments for the 2026 ABRSM woodwind syllabus books, and two for a Recorder Mix book, all now published. I always love the opportunity to present existing material in different ways – and it was particularly gratifying, in Recorder Mix, to find myself alongside several of the emerging composers that I had mentored on the ABRSM’s Composer Mentoring Scheme.
And I’ve also been doing some choral, and piano solo arrangements, and these are all published and on sale from Colne Edition.
The choral ones are aimed at small church choirs and are arrangements of popular hymns and worship songs, often flexibly scored, suitable as easy anthems within church services. Published in the series Prayer and Praise for Choirs, they have sold sets of copies in several countries, and they include The Servant King, Make me a Channel of your Peace, How Great Thou Art, A New Commandment, and It is Well with my Soul. You can see a complete list here.
And, picking up from that, I’ve recently started a new series, Piano Prayer and Praise. Having written a lot of organ preludes for church services recently, I thought it was time to give church pianists a go – so I’ve written four (so far) fantasias on popular hymns, suitable as interludes or during communion. I’ve put them on Soundcloud, where they seem to be getting plenty of plays! Details here.
Recent Colne Edition publications:
Lie still and slumber (Christmas Carol: SATB with organ or piano)
Festival Grace (unison or two-part voices with piano)
That Virgin’s Child (two versions: SATB unaccompanied and solo voice with piano)
Recent GIA publications:
Infant Holy – arrangement of the traditional Polish carol for mixed voice choir – details here
Little Jesus, sweetly sleep – arrangement of the Czech ‘Rocking Carol’ for mixed voice choir – details here
Both of these are arrangements that I wrote for the once-a-year St. Mary’s Friston Christmas Choir (Suffolk)
New Church Organ World publication:
Prelude on Slane: in Be Still for the Presence, volume 2