The Christmas Story

The Christmas Story EARLY BIRD TICKETS FOR THE MONTH OF SETEMBER

This Christmas the Symphony Choir will be offering something a bit different. Come and join us for an evening of fun family entertainment.

British composer, Cecelia MacDowall, is renowned for her imaginative lyrical beauty with colourful harmonies, inventive orchestration and an instinctive understanding of the human voice.

CHRISTUS NATUS EST ("Christ is Born") is a joyful Christmas cantata commissioned by conductor George Vass and first performed in December 2002. Rather than telling the Nativity story through a continuous narrative, McDowall creates a sequence of five much-loved carols for mixed choir. MacDowall's gift lies in respecting the beauty of traditional carols while presenting them through a modern musical lens.

John Rutter’s BROTHER HEINRICH’S CHRISTMAS is a delightful fable set to music and performed by a narrator, mixed choir and orchestra, where the bassoon has a special part. Originally written for a Christmas broadcast from Salisbury Cathedral, it is a charming story of a 14th-century Dominican Friar, Brother Heinrich Suso, who notated the carol In Dulci Jubilo after it was sung to him by a band of angels. He is assisted, quite unexpectedly, by his faithful donkey, Sigismund.

American composer and church musician, Lloyd Larson, is one of the most widely performed composers of contemporary sacred choral music. Larson's MORNING STAR is a celebration of the Advent and Christmas message, a story of hope written for choir and narrator. It blends new as well as familiar Christmas melodies, reminding us that even in our darkest hours light and joy will come.