Christ’s Nativity: a seasonal programme of music

London Concord Singers’ Christmas programme centre’s on Britten’s Christmas suite for chorus, Christ’s Nativity, a remarkable work written in 1931 when he was still a student and testament both to the young composer’s fertile imagination in his writing for unaccompanied chorus and to the way the Christmas story fired his imagination.

Also in the concert are contemporary carols by Richard Rodney Bennett, Julian Merson and Thomas Hewitt-Jones, plus Sweelinck’s infectious Hodie Christus Natus Est.

The programme is completed with a group of secular pieces that reflect the Winter season, with Ola Gjeilo‘s evocative Northern Lights, Samuel Barber’s Reincarnations and Elgar’s stunning Part Songs, Opus 53