Programme (on occasion, the artists may make minor changes to the published programme)
‘Welcome Joy’ and Britten’s Ceremony of Carols
Imogen Holst Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow, 1st movement
Judith Weir We sekyn here rest
Olivia Sparkhall Lux aeterna
Hilary Campbell Our endless day
Caroline Lizotte La Madone
Elizabeth Poston An English Day-Book
Elizabeth Poston Jesus Christ the apple tree
Howard Skempton Into this world, this day did come
Peter Maxwell Davies The Fader of Heven
Trad. Ther is no rose of swych vertu
Benjamin Britten Ceremony of Carols
Listen to music from this programme on Spotify HERE
Corvus Consort’s upper voices join with harpist Louise Thomson to present a Christmas concert, featuring music celebrating women’s voices alongside Benjamin Britten’s iconic Ceremony of Carols.
The first half of the programme comprises a selection of music from ‘Welcome Joy’, which was released in 2024 on Chandos Records. A celebration of women’s voices, both as singers and composers, the album received five stars from BBC Music Magazine, who also named it one of their ’13 best classical albums of 2024’.
Imogen Holst’s characterful Keats setting Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow opens the programme, before a set of beautiful works by living composers Judith Weir, Olivia Sparkhall and Hilary Campbell, all commissioned by Multitude of Voyces as part of a project to mark International Women’s Day in 2019. Caroline Lizotte’s La Madone for solo harp then provides a harmonic bridge to Elizabeth Poston’s remarkable An English Day-Book, a cycle of eleven short movements charting the course of a day in the English countryside, packed with strikingly vivid depictions of bells, clocks, songbirds, owls, and a mischievous bumblebee.
The second half is where things get festive, opening with a selection of a cappella Christmas pieces by Elizabeth Poston, Howard Skempton and Peter Maxwell Davies, as well as the medieval carol Ther is no rose of swych vertu.
Finally Corvus and Louise will perform Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, undoubtedly the most famous composition that exists for women’s voices and harp. Mirroring Poston’s cycle at the end of the first half, the Ceremony of Carols also consists of eleven movements, in this case setting a series of medieval carol texts, with perfectly judged musical moods shifting between the lyrical, poignant, and joyful. It is one of the best-loved works in the English Christmas repertory, and will bring the concert to a fabulous festive close.
Freddie Crowley – Conductor
Louise Thomson – Harp
Ailsa Campbell – Soprano
Clover Willis – Soprano
Hannah Dienes-Williams – Soprano
Hannah Littleton – Soprano
Sumei Bao-Smith – Soprano
Eleriin Müüripeal – Alto
Ellie Stamp – Alto
Helena Paish – Alto
Izzi Blain – Alto
‘Dazzling … under its founder-director Freddie Crowley, Corvus Consort is always full of fresh thinking.’
BBC Music Magazine