As another year rolls towards its close and preparations start to be made for Christmas celebrations, anyone and everyone who sings in a choir knows that this is going to be their busiest singing time of the year! With carols and concerts on stage and in stations, London Philharmonic Choir members are busy rehearsing for three very different events.
We begin with the wonderful traditional Christmas oratorio, Handel’s Messiah, on 5th December at St James’s Church, Spanish Place. This is such a great way to start the Christmas season as it actually reminds us of what Christmas is all about. We’re especially looking forward to this concert as we will be singing with the marvellous Orion Orchestra which was founded to provide young musicians the opportunities and mentorship needed to bridge the gap between music college and their professional careers, while inspiring the next generation through accessible concerts, so you will be supporting them as well as us.
Bass voice representative Gary Freer is particularly looking forward to singing in this concert. “I’m really looking forward to doing a slightly smaller performance of the Messiah in a church with this marvellous orchestra of young musicians. Part 1 is of course what traditionally Christmas is about – the angels, the shepherds, the Nativity. The genius of it all is the way that the words and the music have these reflective episodes, as well as the well known choruses, where it doesn’t ignore the darker side of the fact that Christmas will lead to Easter.
Like the Messiah, Christmas for me as a child was bittersweet really. One of my first memories is of a genuinely white Christmas, and I remember being out on Christmas morning in the garden making a snowman and looking back and seeing my mother and father in the kitchen window with their arms around one another looking really happy. Sadly when I was five my father died, aged 43, and so from then on Christmas was not really quite complete for me until I became a dad myself in 1997. Ever since then, having the traditional family Christmas is something that I’ve really cherished all the more and never really taken for granted, and of course choral music has always been a big part of that. For me, Christmas without music wouldn’t really be Christmas.
One thing people in the Choir probably don’t know about me is that for most of my singing career, after I’d been a boy treble at St Peter’s Church Nottingham, I was a countertenor and the Messiah was important for me in a number of ways. I’d sung choruses from it as a boy and my audition piece when I applied for a choral scholarship to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, was ‘He was despised and Rejected’ – luckily I wasn’t! Later on I ended up singing some solo arias with a local orchestra when they’d put out a request for an alto – which I thought was to be in the choir but was actually for the solos! That turned out to be a great experience for me and now I’m really looking forward to singing the Messiah again, as a bass.”
Tickets for Handel’s Messiah can be purchased here.
Next we come to our wonderful Christmas Classics concerts, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, on the 13th and 14th December. These popular and magical events are perfect for the entire family and are always a sell out, so this year there are three of them – two with us singing on the 13th, and one with the Philharmonia Chorus on the 14th. This is the time to put on your best Christmas sparkle or jumpers and to come along and join in with the festive fun of singing.
Soprano Jenni Kilvert, who is also our Marketing Manager, absolutely loves these concerts. “These concerts are full of fun and joy for the audience and for us. I love to see the audience dressed up with their fairy lights round their heads or on their jumpers, and the sense of knowing what’s going to happen because Christmas has its traditions and that’s part of the joy as well. You kind of know what’s coming and can enjoy singing all the carols and Christmas songs and everyone can join in. A large part of these concerts is also Christmassy classical music so people who might not think to come to a ‘classical concert’ also get to experience something they might not otherwise hear, as well as the carols.
One of my favourite parts of these concerts is that I can bring my six year old son, Leo. He’s been coming since he was four and he just loves it and loves spotting me in the choir. He gets his Christmas jumper out early in anticipation and practices The Twelve Days of Christmas, his favourite, because he wants to remember what’s happening on each of the twelve days. I’m also thrilled that he can come because he then understands a bit better about what I do for my hobby and why he doesn’t see me on Monday evenings as I have to leave straight from school (where I teach music to primary age children) to get to choir practice on time. He knows being in the Choir is a big deal to me so this is the chance when I get to share that with him. In a few years’ time I hope I’ll be able to bring him to a full classical concert, but for now these Christmas Classic concerts are absolutely perfect for him – and me.”
Find out more and buy tickets here.
And then finally, on 16th December from 5.30pm to 7.30 pm, we will be singing in one of our favourite annual events: Christmas Carols on Waterloo Station with the LPO Brass. This popular event, centred somewhere close to the Christmas tree on Waterloo’s station concourse, is directed by the LPO’s enthusiastic principal trombonist Mark Templeton and provides an uplifting Christmas serenade to both commuters and all others who love to listen to carols and brilliant brass playing outside of the concert hall. What’s more, you too can join in and sing with us so if singing with the LPC and LPO has always been a Christmas wish for you, now is the time to do it! As always, we will also be raising money for Save the Children so you will helping with that too – last year we raised an amazing £2,500.
So, there’s plenty of opportunity for you to come and hear us sing – and sing with us – at one, or all of our Christmas events this year. We look forward to seeing and hearing you, and we wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year.
But just before we close the year, and this blog, we’d also like to wish a very, very Happy Birthday to our wonderful Royal Patron, HRH Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy, KG GCVO, who was born on Christmas Day and who has been our patron for thirty years. Thank you Ma’am for supporting us for three decades, and special greetings to you for your birthday as well as for Christmas and the New Year.
