Listen & tracks

Hark the herald angels sing
The angels and shepherds (Kodály)
Away in a manger (Kirkpatrick)
Ave Maria (Kodály)
Once in Royal David’s City
Stille Nacht (Grüber arr. Rutter)
Dancing Song (Kodály)
A Ceremony of Carols (Britten)

Directed by Andrew Blackburn, the choir moves from well-loved seasonal favourites to more unusual concert pieces. Kodály is heard in Ave Maria, The Angels and Shepherds and Dancing Song; Grüber’s Stille Nacht appears in John Rutter’s arrangement; and Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols anchors the disc beside Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Once in Royal David’s City and Kirkpatrick’s Away in a Manger.

Artists

Melbourne Academy Boys Choir

choir

‘The Melbourne Academy Boys Choir, boys of 10 to 14 years sang with great ease the complex pieces of music which even adult singers might find difficult to perform: the boys' performance was indeed of a very high standard. The Kod·ly piece ‘Gólya, Gólya Gilice’ sung in Hungarian brought tears to many an eye.’ (Petőfi Népe Kecskemét)

Andrew Blackburn

director

Andrew studied at Melbourne University where he gained a Master of Music degree. He won numerous prizes during his university degrees and continued his organ studies in England and in France with Jean Langlais.

Benjamin Britten

composer

Edward Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. His operas are firmly established in the international repertoire, and more of them are played worldwide than those of any other composer born in the twentieth century.

Zoltán Kodály

composer

Kodály's music carries folk melody and eastern European colour into masses, solo cello works of fierce technical demand, and piano pieces that range from Debussian meditation to the storm of the Marosszék Dances.

Franz Xaver Gruber

composer

Franz Xaver Gruber wrote the melody of Silent Night, the Christmas carol first heard at midnight Mass in 1818. Later arrangements for organ and orchestra, with other carols and masses of his, remain in print and in Austrian church use.

William J. Kirkpatrick

composer

William J. Kirkpatrick was a gospel hymn composer whose 1895 setting of Away in a Manger is one of the two melodies most often sung to the carol.

John Rutter

composer

John Rutter writes and arranges choral music that sits easily with choirs and congregations: Christmas carols, hymns for the church year, and extended sacred works whose melodies are built for the human voice.