Ex Cathedra Choir
07 December, Lichfield Cathedral, 7pm
12 December, St Martin-in-the-Fields, 7pm
14 December, Coventry Cathedral, 7.30pm
15, 16, 18, 19, 20 December, St Paul’s Church, Birmingham 7.30pm
Ex Cathedra Consort
02 December, St James the Greater, Leicester, 7.30pm
06 December, Hereford Cathedral, 7.30pm
09 December, St Peter’s Collegiate Church, 7pm
Running order: Leicester, Hereford, Lichfield, Wolverhampton, Coventry
Lighten our Darkness (2023) – Liz Dilnot Johnson
Hanac pachap – Ritual 1631
In the bleak midwinter – Gustav Holst
Sing we to this merry company – 15th century English
Reading: I syng of a mayden – 15th century English
Ave Maria – Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Away in a manger – WJ Kirkpatrick (1838-1921) arr. Willcocks
Still, still, still – Salzburg 1868 (arr. Skidmore)
A Hymn to the Virgin – Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Reading: Christmas Bells – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
O salutaris hostia (1997) – Thomas Jennefelt (b. 1954)
Agnus Dei – William Byrd (1543-1623)
Hosanna to the Son of David – Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)
Reading: Our future is greater than our past – Ben Okri (b.1959)
Let all mortal flesh keep silence – Edward Bairstow (1874-1946)
Gentle flame (2019) – Liz Dilnot Johnson
Reading: Gabriel’s revelation – Godfrey Rust (b. 1953)
Minuit Chrétiens (2017) – Adolphe Charles Adam (1803-1856) arr. Jim Clulee
With a merry ding-dong – Martin Bates (1951-2022)
Jesu, joy of man’s desiring – J S Bach (1685-1750) arr. Skidmore (b.1951)
Generous Winter (2023) – Liz Dilnot Johnson
INTERVAL
Reading: The Praise of Dancing – Sir John Davies (1569-1626)
Child of Son – Alec Roth (b. 1948)
Wellcome all Wonders in One Sight – Jonathan Dove (b.1959)
Branle de l’Official: Ding dong merrily on high Jehan Tabouret (1520-1595) arr. Skidmore
O stellae coruscantes – Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Reading: Christmas Star – Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Stars – Ēriks Eŝenvalds (b.1977)
Reading: The Cultivation of Christmas trees – T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
In dulci jubilo – J S Bach (1685-1750)
O Emmanuel (2000) – Fyfe Hutchins (b.1980)
Reading: I cannot tell why He, whom angels worship William Young Fullerton (1857-1932)
O magnum mysterium – Morten Lauridsen (b.1943)
Bethlehem Down – Peter Warlock (1894-1930)
Reading: Gingo biloba – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Reading: Concord – William Plomer (1903-1973)
Love is come again (2018) – Alec Roth
Sometime I sing – Alec Roth
How shall I fitly meet Thee? – J S Bach
ALL: Of the father’s love begotten
Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending he,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!
This is he, whom seer and Sybil
Sang in ages long gone by;
This is he of old revealed
In the page of prophecy;
Lo! he comes the promised Saviour;
Let the world his praises cry!
Evermore and evermore.
O ye heights of heaven adore him;
Angel hosts, his praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before him,
And extol our God and King!
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert sing,
Evermore and evermore!
Running order: St Martin-in-the-Fields & St Paul’s Church, Birmingham
Lighten our Darkness (2023) – Liz Dilnot Johnson (b. 1964)
Hanac pachap – Ritual 1631
In the bleak midwinter – Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Sussex Carol – English Traditional
Reading: I syng of a mayden – 15th century English
Ave Maria – Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Away in a manger – WJ Kirkpatrick (1838-1921) arr. Willcocks
No small wonder – Paul Edwards (b.1955)
Reading: Christmas Bells – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Agnus Dei – Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Reading: Our future is greater than our past – Ben Okri (b.1959)
Let all mortal flesh keep silence – Edward Bairstow (1874-1946)
Gentle flame (2019) – Liz Dilnot Johnson
Reading: Gabriel’s revelation – Godfrey Rust (b. 1953)
Minuit Chrétiens – Adolphe Charles Adam (1803-1856) arr. Jim Clulee
With a merry ding-dong – Martin Bates (1951-2022)
Jesu, joy of man’s desiring – J S Bach (1685-1750) arr. Skidmore (b.1951)
Generous Winter (2023) – Liz Dilnot Johnson
INTERVAL
Reading: The Praise of Dancing – Sir John Davies (1569-1626)
Child of Son – Alec Roth (b. 1948)
Wellcome all wonders in one sight! – Jonathan Dove (b.1959)
Branle de l’Official: Ding dong merrily on high Jehan Tabouret (1520-1595) arr. Skidmore (b.1951)
Reading: And it came to pass – Luke 2:1-8 (King James Version)
And lo, the angel of the Lord – James MacMillan (b.1959)
Torches – John Joubert (1927-2019)
Reading: Christmas Star – Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Evening Star – Christopher Churcher (b.2004)
Reading: The Cultivation of Christmas trees – T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
O Emmanuel – Fyfe Hutchins (b.1980)
Reading: I cannot tell why He, whom angels worship – William Young Fullerton (1857-1932)
I wonder as I wander – Carl Rütti (b.1949)
Bethlehem Down – Peter Warlock (1894-1930)
O magnum mysterium – Morten Lauridsen (b.1943)
Reading: Love came down at Christmas – Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Love is come again – Alec Roth
The Long Road – Ērik Eŝenvalds (b.1977)
How shall I fitly meet Thee? – J S Bach
Organ improvisation
ALL: See amid the winter’s snow – John Goss (1800-1880)
1: (Full)
See amid the winter’s snow,
Born for us on earth below;
See the tender lamb appears,
Promised from eternal years.
Hail, thou ever blessed morn;
Hail, redemption’s happy dawn;
Sing through all Jerusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
2: (Upper voices)
Say, ye holy shepherds, say
What your joyful news today;
Wherefore have ye left your sheep
On the lonely mountain steep.
Hail, thou ever blessed morn…
3: (Lower voices)
As we watch’d at dead of night,
Lo, we saw a wondrous light;
Angels singing, “Peace on earth”
Told us of the Saviour’s birth.
Hail, thou ever blessed morn…
4: (Audience)
Sacred infant, all divine,
What a tender love was thine,
Thus to come from highest bliss
Down to such a world as this.
Hail, thou ever blessed morn…
5: (Full)
Teach, O teach us, Holy child,
By thy face so meek and mild,
Teach us to resemble thee,
In thy sweet humility:
Hail, thou ever blessed morn…
Programme Note
In these distracted times we might be forgiven for reconsidering the relevance and importance of Christmas concerts and celebrations. But celebrating peace, love, justice, motherhood, families, giving, goodness, beauty and joy is exactly what the world needs. Surely, we must hold on to these things and keep the glimmer of hope for humanity alive. There are two programmes in our annual December series of concerts which allow me and the choir to explore a wide range of music and themes. Out of towns (OOTS as we call them) are in wonderful venues (in Shrewsbury, Leicester, Hagley, Hereford, Lichfield, Wolverhampton, and Coventry), which we have nurtured over a long period of time and where we have a loyal following of supporters. These programmes are for a cappella choir. The second programme with organ accompaniment is performed on five consecutive days in St Paul’s, the historic church in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and which in many ways is Ex Cathedra’s spiritual home. This programme is also performed in London, this year, for the first time in St Martin-in-the-Fields, the iconic church on Trafalgar Square. The architectural configuration is very similar in both buildings and allows the performance of cori spezzati with suitable choreography! St Paul’s is a special building and needs help to be restored, maintained and refurbished. Ex Cathedra’s performances there over the last 50 years are legendary, with many world premieres and a unique atmosphere created by the church’s architecture and acoustic. If you have not experienced a concert in this church, I encourage you to make the effort to venture into Birmingham – you will not be disappointed. Many people attend an OOT and St Paul’s!
Tonight’s programme is local and global and includes, as usual, works from ancient times to the 21st century. There are works by Midlands composers John Joubert, Martin Bates, Fyfe Hutchins, Christopher Churcher, Alec Roth
and Liz Dilnot Johnson alongside pieces by Benjamin Britten, James MacMillan, Jonathan Dove, and music and readings from the USA, Africa, Scandinavia, South America, India, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Austria, Italy and France.
There are traditional favourites, many new works that have become favourites and new works that will, I’m sure, become favourites. Alec Roth has been our composer-in-residence for over 15 years and has recently been appointed composer-in-residence for RIAS Kammerchor, the world-renowned chamber choir based in Berlin. Our recording of his cantata The Traveller with texts by Vikram Seth was released in July to critical acclaim. The work was originally premiered in Lichfield in 2008 and the haunting Child of Son is a processional song which opens and closes the work, clearly influenced by the South American Inca hymn Hanac pachap cussicuinin. Candlelight also includes two of our favourite, ravishingly beautiful love songs Love is come again and Sometime I sing. Alec’s music is becoming increasingly well-known world-wide. At the beginning of September Ex Cathedra recorded many of Liz Dilnot Johnson’s choral works, most written for Ex Cathedra, to be released next year for Liz’s 60th birthday. Two pieces are included here together with yet another world premiere. Lighten our darkness sets words from the Book of Common Prayer. The other words you will hear, sung by the baritone solo, were composed by a group of young asylum seekers living in Coventry. Heywat = ‘Life’ in Tigrinya (a language spoken in Eritrea), Kushwaristi = ‘Love’ in Kurdish, and Haya = ‘Love’ in Arabic. This piece was first performed at Coventry Cathedral as part of Liz’s award-winning large-scale work When A Child Is A Witness – a Requiem for Refugees. Gentle flame for double choir sets the scene of pilgrims travelling through the night by candlelight to honour the Christ child, accompanied by hosts of angels singing Alleluia. Generous Winter is one of a series of new pieces engaging with ideas drawn from the book Doughnut Economics by Professor Kate Raworth. Questions are asked: ‘How can we be regenerative at this time of the year? How can we be generous when the wind blows so cold?’
The young composer Christopher Churcher was a chorister at Birmingham Cathedral and for a short while a member of Ex Cathedra’s Academy of Vocal Music. He is currently studying at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where he is reading music. He continues to develop technically and imaginatively and has yet again produced a powerful work of increasing complexity. He writes:
Commissioned by Paul Mealor in October 2022, Evening Star received its first performance by the Delaware Choral Scholars at St. Leonard’s Church in July 2023. Delving into the interplay of light and darkness, the music is crafted for chorus and semichorus, weaving antiphonal textures in the ebb and flow between the two choirs. A setting of the poem The Evening Star by Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück, the music is inspired by the imagery in the poem of a star ‘increasing in brilliance’, until the surrounding earth fades into darkness. It made me consider why stars emblematise the meaning
of hope so perfectly, and what – or who – my own ‘evening star’ might be.
Jonathan Dove’s Wellcome, although written in 1990, is new to Candlelight and is the choice of George Parris, our Associate Conductor for the Candlelight series. Jonathan is also one of my favourite living composers, and his melodic and harmonic language matches the colourful imagery of the 17th-century mystical poet Richard Crashaw. The dramatic recurring of ‘God in man’ is particularly effective.
George writes further: Jonathan Dove’s Wellcome, all wonders in one sight! is a setting of an extended poem ‘A Hymne of the Nativity, sung as by the shepherds’. The first lines conjure the miracle of Christ’s birth as an incomprehensible revelation with a chain of paradoxical images, including the very enticing idea of ‘summer in winter’. A new section of text is sung by the first basses, mimicking the shepherds’ reaction to witnessing the holy child opening his eyes for the very first time, before sopranos, starting low in their range, sing of an intense, all-consuming devotion. Throughout the piece the word and gesture of ‘Wellcome’ is used as an atmospheric, lilting accompaniment. An exception comes at the perplexing idea of ‘God in man’ where a moment of awe and radiance sudden breaks through, distant to what has come before it both in texture, pitch, and tonality.
The programme also includes three anniversary works by Byrd, Weelkes and Rachmaninoff and we revisit two impressive commissions, O salutaris hostia by Swedish composer Thomas Jennefelt (1997) and, written when the composer was a 20-year-old debutant, Fyfe Hutchins’ extraordinary piece O Emmanuel (2000). I should also like to remark on Monteverdi’s contrafactum O stellae coruscantes, one of over 20 pieces which we recorded in the late 90s and which were translated by Roy Batters, who died earlier this year. He was a much-loved alto with Ex Cathedra for over 25 years. His translations were signed Florence 1997! One of his many school trips. O gleaming stars, ornaments of heaven that lighten our pitch-darkness, O pure Sun and Moon, O kindly likeness of Him whom I adore, of Him who made you, shine with your radiant light, give blessings to our God and highest praise to him who bestowed delight upon you and endowed your paths with splendour; praise him to all eternity.
I hope you find some things in the programme that please you and give you some comfort and inspiration to help you join us in making the world a better place. There are many good people in the world. Have a happy Christmas.
Performers
EX CATHEDRA
Jeffrey Skidmore conductor
LEICESTER (02 December)
Soprano: Elizabeth Drury, Margaret Lingas, Imogen Russell, Suzzie Vango
Alto: Martha McLorinan, Anna Semple
Tenor: Jack Granby, Sid Imanol
Bass: Dan Gilchrist, David Le Prevost
HAGLEY (05 December)
Soprano: Marianne Ayling, Clare Edwards, Olivia Hugh-Jones, Sarah Keating, Margaret Lingas, Shirley Scott, Sally Spencer, Clover Willis**
Alto: Mercè Bruguera Abelló, Sam Mitchell, Ellie Stamp**, Laura Toomey*
Tenor: Paul Bentley-Angell, Steve Davis, Tom Hawkey-Soar*, Dan Marles^, James Wells**
Bass: Robert Asher, Jeremy Burrows, Simon Gallear, Richard Green, John Johnston**, David Le Prevost, Matt Pandya*, David Smith
HEREFORD (06 December)
Soprano: Elizabeth Drury, Margaret Lingas, Imogen Russell, Suzzie Vango
Alto: Sam Mitchell, Anna Semple
Tenor: Paul Bentley-Angell, Jack Granby
Bass: Tom Lowen, Lawrence White
LICHFIELD (07 December)
Soprano: Marianne Ayling, Sarah Colgan, Clare Edwards, Margaret Langford, Margaret Lingas, Imogen Russell, Shirley Scott, Suzzie Vango, Clover Willis**
Alto: Mercè Bruguera Abelló, Rebecca Lloyd, Sam Mitchell, Katy Raines-Rami, Ellie Stamp**, Laura Toomey*
Tenor: Paul Bentley-Angell, Steve Davis, Tom Hawkey-Soar*, Dan Marles^, James Wells**
Bass: Robert Asher, Jeremy Burrows, John Cotterill, Simon Gallear, Richard Green, John Johnston**, David Smith, Lawrence White
WOLVERHAMPTON (09 December)
Soprano: Caroline Halls, Olivia Hugh-Jones, Margaret Lingas, Clover Willis**
Alto: Sam Mitchell, Anna Semple
Tenor: Paul Bentley-Angell, Jack Granby
Bass: David Le Prevost, Tom Lowen
ST MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS (12 December)
Soprano: Marianne Ayling, Sarah Colgan, Elizabeth Drury, Clare Edwards, Caroline Halls, Margaret Lingas, Imogen Russell, Katie Trethewey, Suzzie Vango
Alto: Martha McLorinan, Sam Mitchell, Andrew Round, Ellie Stamp**, Laura Toomey*
Tenor: Paul Bentley-Angell, Steve Davis, Tom Hawkey-Soar*, Sid Imanol, Dan Marles^, James Wells**
Bass: Robert Asher, Jeremy Burrows, John Cotterill, Richard Green, John Johnston**, David Le Prevost, David Smith, Lawrence White
COVENTRY (14 December)
Soprano: Marianne Ayling, Sarah Colgan, Rebecca Ledgard, Margaret Lingas, Rebecca Mills, Imogen Russell, Shirley Scott, Beth Taylor, Suzzie Vango
Alto: Sam Mitchell, Suzie Purkis, Katy Raines-Rami, Ellie Stamp**, Laura Toomey*
Tenor: Steve Davis, Sid Imanol, Daniel Marles^, James Robinson, James Wells**
Bass: Robert Asher, Oliver Barker^, Jeremy Burrows, John Cotterill, Richard Green, John Johnston**, David Le Prevost, George Parris, David Smith, Lawrence White
BIRMINGHAM ST PAUL’S (15, 16, 18, 19, 20 December)
Soprano: Marianne Ayling, Phoebe Boateng, Sarah Colgan, Ros Crouch, Elizabeth Drury, Clare Edwards, Naomi Hedges, Sophie Henderson*, Joy Krishnamoorthy, Margaret Langford, Rebecca Ledgard, Margaret Lingas, Rebecca Mills, Imogen Russell, Shirley Scott, Rachel Snape, Sally Spencer, Katie Trethewey, Suzzie Vango, Clover Willis**
Alto: Mercè Bruguera Abelló, Rebecca Lloyd, Martha McLorinan, Sam Mitchell, Hope Pugh, Suzie Purkis, Katy Raines-Rami, Anna Semple, Ellie Stamp*, Laura Toomey**
Tenor: Isaac Boulter, Steve Davis, Tony Dean, Jack Granby, Daniel Marles^, Jeremy Reid, James Robinson, Toby Ward
Bass: Oliver Barker^, Jeremy Burrows, John Cotterill, Richard Green, John Johnston**, David Le Prevost, George Parris, Matt Pandya*, Peter Scurlock, David Smith, Lawrence White
Organ: Rupert Jeffcoat (18, 19, 20)
Nicholas Wearne (15, 16)
**denotes 2023-24 Graduate Scholar
* denotes 2023-24 RBC Student Scholar
^ denotes 2023-24 Enhanced Scholar
Meet the… musician
In this programme, we invite you to meet Jeremy Burrows.
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