The 12 Days of Christmas

The Choir of Ormond College

The Choir of Ormond College has, since its founding in 1982 under Douglas Lawrence, become the first Australian choir to earn ongoing international recognition for its concert and recorded work.

Douglas Lawrence

Melbourne organist Douglas Lawrence is Director of Music at The Scots' Church and Teacher of the Organ at the University of Melbourne. He founded the Choir of Ormond College and directed it from 1982 to 2006.

Benjamin Britten

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.

Alfred Ernest Floyd

Alfred Ernest Floyd's sacred writing serves the church year and the organ loft: the carol Cold and Dark is Holy Night, Church Preludes for small instruments, and hymnody from Advent through All Saints.

Herbert Howells

Herbert Howells wrote Anglican church music of rare harmonic warmth and contemplative beauty, from carol-anthems such as A Spotless Rose to Latin motets and organ works steeped in the Tudor tradition.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. His ballets, concertos and orchestral works remain among the most widely performed music in the classical repertoire.

Harold Darke

Franz Xaver Gruber

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.

Patrick Hadley

Peter Hurford

John Joubert

John Joubert wrote choral music that sits firmly in the Anglican tradition, above all the carols Torches and There is no rose of such virtue. His wider catalogue also takes in symphonies, concertos, chamber works and operas drawn from literature.

William Mathias

William Mathias (1934–1992) was a Welsh composer, especially noted for choral music written for the Anglican tradition, alongside symphonies, concertos and an opera.

Johann Hermann Schein

Pierre de Villette

Program notes

Douglas Lawrence

Melbourne organist Douglas Lawrence is Director of Music at The Scots' Church and Teacher of the Organ at the University of Melbourne. He founded the Choir of Ormond College and directed it from 1982 to 2006.

Cover concept and artwork

Judith Calov

Booklet layout

Martin Wright

Recording engineer and director of Move Records, Martin Wright has well over fifty years’ experience in the industry and has been widely recognised for the calibre of his recordings.

Program notes

Vaughan McAlley

Vaughan McAlley is a composer and arranger, alto and tenor, a capable flautist and French horn player, and the recording engineer behind countless Move releases.