Choral Evensong – 29 November
This week's music
A festive treat for you this week! The anthem, The seven joys of Mary is by the contemporary composer, William Whitehead, and is new to our repertoire. As well as doing it in this service, we have performed it a few times in concerts at London's Cadogan Hall and Birmingham's Symphony Hall this December. It provides a nice contrast to the more reflective Psalm 142 (to a beautiful chant by Hylton Stewart) and the Fourth Service by Batten! And in fact the service ends on a joyous note with the traditional carol, O come, all ye faithful. We often sing our previous Director of Music, David Hill's descant to this – for example the last time we sang at the Concertgebouw – but this time the trebles and tenors get stuck into the more often-performed Willcocks version.
This week's blog
Happy Christmas! 27 December is always a bit of a let down after the festivities of the previous few days so we thought we would cheer you up with a Christmas Webcast. We also giving anyone with internet a Christmas present – we've uploaded a whole lot of new tracks to SJC Live for you to enjoy. In case you haven't signed up already, SJC Live is a free resource of live recordings of music in our services in Chapel. All you need to do is sign up, validate your email address and you'll have free access to hundreds of choral music tracks from anywhere in the world. Get listening now!
The image above is of the massed choirs of Caius, Clare, Jesus, Trinity and St John's, with Andrew Nethsingha (conductor), David Stout (baritone and former choral scholar) and the Philharmonia orchestra, all on stage at London's Royal Festival Hall for a performance of Walton's Belshazzar's Feast.
Recovered BBC Evensong now available on SJC Live The Choir were all disappointed at the power cut in College which disrupted the BBC's broadcast of Choral Evensong last week. But the best has been made out of a bad situation. |
Next Chapel service
Today
Festal Eucharist
Introit: Byrd Psallite Domino
Vierne: Messe Solennelle
Gradual: Psalm 47
Hymns 130, 271, 339
Voluntary: Messiaen Transports de joie (L’Ascension)