"A Ceremony of Carols"
Sunday, December 13th, 2020
6:30 pm.
St. John’s will host a virtual Christmas Concert on Sunday, December 13, 2020 at 6:30 PM. The concert will feature a choral work by Benjamin Britten called “A Ceremony of Carols”. The choral work is composed for treble chorus and harp. Written for Christmas, it consists of eleven movements, with text from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, edited by Gerald Bullett.
We will also be featuring some instrumental music for Harp. We hope you will join in the singing of three hymns during the Virtual Concert. Two of those hymns are from the 2019 Christmas Concert at St. John’s. The third hymn will be a virtual Christmas carol provided by the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. This virtual hymn includes several musicians from St. John’s participating. The hymn is “Angels We Have Heard on High” and features over 1,000 singers and instrumentalists.
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A Christmas Concert during a pandemic?
Yes, I kept asking myself this question. How is this going to occur safely? The easiest solution was to simply not schedule this beautiful annual event. I contemplated this and how the concert probably would not be anything close to what we are accustomed to even if we did proceed with it. However, after much discussion, thought and prayer, I selected the 25 minute choral work “A Ceremony of Carols” by Benjamin Britten.
The virtual Christmas Concert will be a bit abbreviated, but it will include: the Britten choral piece, which will have seven singers; instrumental music for harp; as well as three hymns for everyone to sing along with. I thoughtfully determined that this was the safest option for St. John's this year.
I am very much going to miss the many vocal and instrumental ensembles, orchestra, and the many gifted musicians. Not to mention the 100’s of people that have come to enjoy this Christmas Concert in person every year. I do pray that 2021 will become somewhat of a normal place around us to do these amazing things together in celebration of Christ’s Birth.
David A. Lincoln, Director of Music