Christmas Music

NEW! Carol Williams plays all our favorite Christmas carols and some of her own recorded at St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego, CA on the 79 rank, four manual Aeolian-Skinner organ, Opus 1495. Pipe-work by Hook & Hastings Johnston (of Van Nuys) and M. P. Moller.

NEW! Winter is a season whose associations are as varied as its experiences. For many the world over it is bitterly cold and dark; some see no daylight for weeks. For others, winter is a mild season. This rich variety is at the heart of this program which celebrates winter from a variety of angles. Christmas is a central theme. Maxine Thévenot directs Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico, the all-female choir. The music, including some premiere recordings, comes from Britain, Europe, Canada, and the US encompassing the sacred and secular. Lynn Gorman DeVelder accompanies the chorus on harp and Maxine Thévonot accompanies the choir on Organ.

NEW! The magnificent voices of the Huddersfield Choral Society celebrate the Christmas season with heart-warming arrangements of our favorite carols. Undoubtedly the hardiest annual of the entire musical repertory, the carol, in one form or another, has held its own against the twin ravages of time and taste, out-witting the fickleness of fashion and fad down the ages through its remarkable mutability. The simple nature of the carol allowed it to absorb the cross-currents and reflections of religious observance and popular pickiness, giving it a peculiar freedom to be turned into either devotion or diversion for both, the religiously inclined or the die-hard holyday reveller. There are very few musical numbers that are still routinely sung, year in and year out, in the most solemn of cathedrals, shabby street corners, grand villas, humble homes, austere churches and rough-and-tumble bars the world over.

The Winchester Cathedral boys and girls choir with lay clerks perform a selection of Christmas songs from this past summer featured especially for this Christmas. The Winchester Cathedral Choir is accompanied by Simon Bell on organ, Frances Kelly on harp, and under the direction of Andrew Lumsden.

When an ensemble like the BBC Singers, renowned for its commitment to the music of our time, sets out to record a Christmas CD you can be sure that the repertoire will include material rather different from the usual run of popular standards and arrangements! One star, at last includes eight new carols (six of them specially-commissioned by BBC Radio 3), several premiere recordings, and a selection of music – serious and light-hearted, contemplative and joyful – by some of the leading British, European and North American choral composers of the day.

NEW! Jack Mitchener plays Christmas organ music on the 75-rank pipe organ built by C. B. Fisk as Op. 116 in 2001 at Finney Chapel, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio.

Robert Sharpe directs The Choir of York Minster in a program of familiar favorites and some lesser-known works of the season. Robert Sharpe's work, The Promise of Peace, was commissioned for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in 2008. John Scott Whiteley performs on the organ.

Familiar Christmas carols and excellent arrangements beautifully sung and accompanied at Truro, where the famed festival of lessons and carols originated.

Karel Paukert, who for 30 years was Curator of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Museum of Arts, gathers an interesting group of colorful Christmas works from Italy, France, Bohemia, Germany and the New World and performs them with great facility on the Museum’s Skinner/Holtkamp organ.

Scott Foppiano offers a grand Christmas on one of only five “Wonder” Mortons built by the very prolific Robert Morton Company, now in Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre.

Christmas joy radiates from Las Cantantes, the Women’s Choir of the University of New Mexico, directed by Maxine Thévenot, in beautiful traditional favorites.

Robert Lehman tours the organ noël in a program of colorful favorites.

Daniel Hyde shows the versatility of the King's organ and plays works used in the famous service of lessons and carols.

Gerre Hancock directs the world renowned Choir of St. Thomas Church, New York; Judith Hancock, organist in a glorious program of carols and anthems for the Christmas season.

Scott Carpenter plays the largest existing organ built by America's first Organbuilder, David Tannenberg

Ben Van Oosten plays the 1915/95 Casavant 5-91 at Église St-Jean-Baptiste in Montréal, where Dupré himself had played concerts on tour.

Huw Williams, sub-organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, plays Christmas organ music in the sumptuous acoustics of this beloved place.

Christmas Wonderland was recorded in the residence of Paul & Linda Van Der Molen in Wheaton, Illinois. The instruments include the beautifully restored 4-manual 26-rank Wonder Morton, a Steinway 9’ concert grand piano, and a Mason & Hamlin 9’ concert grand piano. Click Picture for Details & to Order

On four organs in the Cathedral at Bremen, Germany, Wolfgang Baumgratz plays Christmas organ music composed over a period of 150 years by members of the Bach family, including several earlier than J. S. Bach as well as 19th-century compositions.

Stefan Schmidt improvises on the great symphonic 3-59 Göckel organ in St. Peter’s, Düsseldorf on Gregorian Chant tunes for Advent and Christmas as sung by the Schola Ars Cantandi directed by Peter Petermann.

The Choir of Winchester Cathedral, the Bach Choir, and the Wallace Collection (a brass ensemble) are conducted by David Hill; Jane Watts, organ. Click ikon for repertoire

ConVivium, 23 finely blended voices in central Massachusetts directed by John Delorey and Patricia Snyder are accompanied by Snyder and Ronald Stalford on the Aeolian-Skinner at All Saints, Worcester, Massachusetts, in these beautiful Christmas works by Leo Sowerby: A Great and Mighty Wonder; Come Ye, and Let Us Go Up; A Prayer for Christmas; Little Jesus Sweetly Sleep; Love Came Down at Christmas; Manger Carol; Lovelin Infant; There Comes a Ship a ‘Sailing; A Carol in Praise of the Holly and the Ivy; Good King Wenceslas; Away in a Manger; Can You Count the Stars; Cradle Hymn; The Snow Lay on the Ground; All My Heart This Night Rejoices, A New Year’s Carol; Now There Lightens Upon Us; Jesu Bright and Morning Star.

Ken Cowan plays the Aeolian organ of 10,010 pipes, and Peter Conte directs the wonderful choir of St. Clement’s, Philadelphia. Click ikon for repertoire

With engaging facility and using many familiar seasonal melodies, Earl Miller improvises on the great 3m Andover organ he designed for Epiphany Episcopal Church, Danville, Virginia.

Exquisite singing with organ and other instruments, Edith Ho and Mark Dwyer, directors of the Advent choir, with Harvard Glee Club. Works by Rodney Lister, Virgil Thomson, Charles Ives, Edith Osborne Ives, Conrad Susa, and Carlisle Floyd.

Leonard Ciampa, organist at First Baptist Church, Jamaica Plain, Boston, plays on the 1859 E. & G. G. Hook 3m, his own music and that of others to raise maintenance funds. Other instruments and ensembles join the organ in some pieces. Click ikon for repertoire

Check out this selection of CDs for $4.99 and $5.99, including The Mormon Tabernacle, Trinity Church Wall Street, and other greats! Wonderful singing from Tewksbury Abbey and from the Elora Singers of Toronto.

John Scott directs the famous Choir of Men & Boys, Andrew Lucas, organ. Click ikon for repertoire

A Christmas concert from Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, with the choirs of the Cathedral accompanied by the choir organ. Pierre Cochereau at the grand orgue provides many improvisations on traditional Christmas melodies for this festive occasion.

Elizabeth and Raymond Chenault, celebrated duo organists, play the 3-79 Ruffati. CALLAHAN: Christmas Fantasy THOMAS: Two Carol Preludes BUFFINGTON: Prelude on Veni Emmanuel TORME: Christmas Song ANDERSON: Sleigh Ride YON: Gesu Bambino BERLIN: White Christmas DAVIS: Carol of the Drum POWELL: Angels Among Us HAKIM: Go Tell It . . . ROBERTS: Nativity Scenes MOORE: Fantasia Greensleeves HOBBY: Toccata on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen MCCONNAUGHEY: Christmas Fancy on Bring a Torch

A brand-new CD from the Memphis Boychoir and Chamber Choir brings fresh ideas and new music for a traditional Christmas. As usual, stellar performances are directed by John Ayer with organist David J. Kienzle. Recorded in sumptuous acoustics at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Memphis.

NEW!
Music from Advent to Christmas with the Newcastle Cathedral Choir

NEW!
Carols for Christmas
The Chapel Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge

These festive improvisations were recorded at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris at Christmas services 1968-1973 and at one private concert held there in 1971 with famed titular organist Pierre Cochereau at the console.

Christmas organ music from Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan is played by James Kibbie: Bach, Karg-Elert, Peart, Milford, Gigout, D'Aquin, Dupré, Purvis, Visser, Franck.