Together with our Musical Director James Savage-Hanford we very pleased to announce we will once again be joined by the talented St Aidan’s High School Chamber Choir and their conductor Jo Leonard as we present an evening of advent and festive music including traditional carols with audience partcipation!

Vocalis will perform Benjamin Britten’s ‘A Ceremony of Carols’. This is a choral composition for Christmas and was composed during his hazardous journey across the Atlantic in 1942. We shall be singing the 1943 version for full choir. Britten’s wonderful settings of Latin and medieval texts have a virtuosic harp accompaniment.

The evening will also include Will Todd, My Lord Has Come; Sally Beamish, In the Stillness;  Elizabeth Poston, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree and The Holly and the Ivy, Matthew Owens. St Aidan’s High School Chamber Choir will be performing Bob Chilcott, Silent Night; John Leavitt, The Angel Gabriel; Philip Stopford, A Christmas Blessing and a joint piece with Vocalis by John Rutter, Christmas Lullaby.

We are pleased to welcome locally born harpist Lucinda Taylor and Anthony Gray, who is Director of Music at St Wilfrid’s Church and will be playing the organ. We will also be treated to harp and organ solos within the programme.

We are delighted to announce that all concert proceeds will go to Artizan International which is a Harrogate based charity providing training and employment opportunities for disabled adults in our region and in Peru and Ecuador. Please go to www.artizaninternational.org for more details about their very worthwhile and supportive work, locally and abroad.

Seasonal refreshments will be available and we look forward to welcoming you to an evening full of glorious music!