December is Here

December is here, and having in the past written a few brief Christmas-adjacent choral numbers, I've been getting news of numerous carol concerts happening everywhere. The repertoire is often surprisingly imaginative, and it delights me yearly that choirs of all kinds are still up for this - and their audiences too.

A handful that I'll be going to around London illustrate the considerable range of this seasonal "artform". On Thursday 11th December in Conway Hall, Electric Voice Theatre will present an ingenious evening of secular carols (which so many carols were, in olden times.) My Guardian Angel, with a text by William Blake, has crept under (flown over?) the wire of secularity here.

Then on Tuesday 16th, City Chamber Choir, in St Mary's Bourne Street, perform a programme titled Illuminare (I think after my own carol of that name) and will be including quite a lot of music by contemporary composers, in a nevertheless recognisably Christmassy context with readings and congregational singing.

And finally, right up against the festive day itself, on Tuesday 23rd in Wigmore Hall, Siglo de Oro have curated a most intelligent recital covering the earliest origins of the carol, again teaming this up with new work. So often, when December arrives, the instinct (certainly mine) is to put the head under the covers until it all stops. But in fact some of the most interesting and adventurous music programming of the year appears at this time.

PICTURED - Solidarity Monument, Warsaw.