Our 2024 Christmas Concert, “Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming”, took place on Saturday, 14th December at 7.30pm, in St Mary’s Church in Wigton, conducted by our Music Director, Ian Wright.

Christmas Concert 2024 flyer

The programme consisted of Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio and a selection of Christmas Carols.

Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio, written for the Three Choirs Festival, received its World Premiere in Gloucester Cathedral in 2019. It is a powerful re-telling of the Christmas story, using words from the Gospels of St Luke and St Matthew together with poetry spanning the 16th to the 19th centuries. The work includes five well-known hymn texts set to original melodies.

We were delighted to be joined by soloists

  • Anne-Marie Kerr (mezzo-soprano)
  • Cameron Mitchell (tenor)
  • Sam Weakley (bass)

and accompanied by

  • Sarah Devereux (flute)
  • David T Shingler (organ)

Review

We are grateful to Barbara Gibson for the following review of the concert:

Wigton Choral Society Christmas concert, December 14th 2024

Wigton Choral Society’s Christmas concert this year, ‘Lo, how a rose e’er blooming’, took its title from the first movement of the main work, Bob Chilcott’s ‘Christmas Oratorio’. Before this however, the substantial audience was invited to join the choir in some carols to traditional tunes, and listen to other less familiar carols sung by the choir, all of which were by composers born in the 20th century.

After some welcome refreshments, came the Oratorio. Mainly accompanied sensitively by David Shingler on the organ, the story of the Nativity as told by St. Luke unfolded, linked by the narration of tenor Cameron Mitchell, who sang the many complex lines beautifully. For me the stand-out movement was the Magnificat, the choir singing the Latin text to plainsong as a backing to the lovely singing of the English text by Anne-Marie Kerr as Mary, an interesting musical device which worked well. The other main solo was by bass Sam Weakley, taking the part of Simeon in the movingly sung Nunc Dimittis. Minor roles were capably sung by choir members Peter Shingler, Felicity Blamires and Rick Thomas. The choir itself was mainly confident and seemed to enjoy the music, particularly the challenging arrangement of ‘Ding dong merrily on high’.

Audience members were able to share actively in the music, as in each of the four sections there was a hymn, much in the same way as Bach included Chorales in his oratorio of the same name, and it was helpful to have the music available in the programme as the tunes to the familiar words were Chilcott’s own.

Despite the second half of the concert being quite long, this was indeed a concert to remember. It is so good to hear some young singers making music like this; congratulations go to music director Ian Wright, who can be justifiably proud both of the concert itself and of providing such opportunities.

Barbara Gibson, 16/12/24.

Flyers

A copy of the poster may be downloaded for printing here: Christmas Concert 2024 flyer.