A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words is the music performed by the ensemble. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
A Christmas carol is a carol on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French origin. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the broader category of Christmas music.
John Milford Rutter is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.
Sir Stephen John Cleobury was an English organist and music director. He worked with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, where he served as music director from 1982 to 2019, and with the BBC Singers.
Sir David Valentine Willcocks, was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London.
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, is a church cantata for Annunciation by Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1725, when the cantata was composed, the feast of the Annunciation coincided with Palm Sunday. Based on Philipp Nicolai's hymn "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern" (1599), it is one of Bach's chorale cantatas. Bach composed it in his second year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, where the Marian feast was the only occasion during Lent when music of this kind was permitted. The theme of the hymn suits both the Annunciation and Palm Sunday occasions, in a spirit of longing expectation of an arrival. As usual for Bach's chorale cantata cycle, the hymn was paraphrased by a contemporary poet who retained the hymn's first and last stanzas unchanged, but transformed the themes of the inner stanzas into a sequence of alternating recitatives and arias.
Václav Nelhýbel was a Czech American composer, mainly of works for student performers.
Robert Chilcott is a British choral composer, conductor, and singer, based in Oxfordshire, England. He was a member of the King's Singers from 1985 to 1997, singing tenor. He has been a composer since 1997.
The choirs at Brigham Young University (BYU) consist of four auditioned groups: BYU Singers, BYU Concert Choir, BYU Men's Chorus, and BYU Women's Chorus. Each choir is highly accomplished and performs from an extensive repertoire. Together, the choirs have recorded and released over 30 albums. The choirs perform frequently throughout the academic year, both as individual ensembles as well as a combined group.
Saint Peter's Singers (SPS) is a chamber choir associated with Leeds Minster, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England that celebrated during the Season 2017/2018 the fortieth anniversary of the choir's formation by Harry Fearnley in 1977. An anniversary concert took place at Leeds Minster on Sunday 25 June 2017 with the National Festival Orchestra and soloists Kristina James, Joanna Gamble, Paul Dutton and Quentin Brown. Further anniversary year events included Bach Cantatas and Music for Christmas at Fulneck Church in August and December respectively, Handel Coronation Anthems at Holy Trinity, Boar Lane as part of the Leeds Handel Festival in September and a tour of East Anglia in October. In November at Leeds Town Hall, the Singers participated in Herbert Howells's masterpiece Hymnus Paradisi with Leeds Philharmonic Chorus and Leeds College of Music Chorale under the direction of Dr David Hill with the Orchestra of Opera North. 2018 began with a concert of Sacred Choral Masterworks at Leeds Town Hall in February and Bach's Mass in B minor at Leeds Minster on Good Friday 2018 in memory of long-serving member Jan Holdstock. The final concert of the current season takes place at Leeds Minster on Sunday 24 June at Leeds Minster at 5.30. At this event will be presented the first performance of a new work from composer Philip Moore commissioned for the Singers' 40th anniversary – the motet Tu es Petrus – along with music by E W Naylor, Arvo Part, Sir Hubert Parry, Judith Bingham and Maurice Durufle.
Paul Mealor CLJ is a Welsh composer. A large proportion of his output is for chorus, both a cappella and accompanied. He came to wider notice when his motet Ubi Caritas et Amor was performed at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011. He later composed the song "Wherever You Are", which became the 2011 Christmas number one in the UK Singles Chart. He has also composed two operas, four symphonies, concerti and chamber music.
Psalm 126 is the 126th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream". In Latin, it is known as In convertendo Dominus. It is one of the fifteen Songs of Ascent in the Book of Psalms whose opening words in Hebrew are "Shir HaMaalot". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible and in the Latin Vulgate, this psalm is Psalm 125.
Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed the Christmas cantata in Leipzig for Christmas Day and first performed it on 25 December 1725.
The City Choir of Washington is a 140-member professional-level volunteer mixed symphonic choir in Washington, D.C. composed of singers from throughout the Washington metropolitan area. The chorus is led by its artistic director Erin Freeman. Ms. Freeman joins the City Choir following a two year search after the announcement in 2019 by Bob Shafer of his plan to retire. She was formerly the Artistic Director of the Richmond Symphony Chorus and continues as the Artistic Director of the Wintergreen Music Festival. Bob Shafer has been named Artistic Director Emeritus of the City Choir of Washington.
Joseph Willcox Jenkins was an American composer, professor of music, and musician. During his military service in the Korean War, he became the first arranger for the United States Army Chorus. He ended his teaching career as Professor Emeritus at the Mary Pappert School of Music, Duquesne University, where he had been a professor since 1961, and composed over 200 works.
Brighton Festival Chorus is a large choir of over 150 amateur singers based in Brighton, UK. One of the country's leading symphony choruses.., and considered "one of the jewels in the city's musical crown", BFC performs in major concert halls throughout Britain and Europe, particularly in Brighton and London.
Jauchzet, frohlocket! Auf, preiset die Tage, BWV 248I, is a 1734 Christmas cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach that serves as the first part of his Christmas Oratorio. Bach was then Thomaskantor, responsible for church music at four churches in Leipzig, a position he had assumed in 1723. For the oratorio, the libretto by an unknown author followed the nativity of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, interspersed with reflecting texts for recitatives and arias, and stanzas from Lutheran hymns.
The Washington Chorus is a symphonic choir based in Washington, D.C., United States. The three-time nominated and two-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble has 160 members and often performs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Strathmore, and the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, as of 2020.
Christopher Roland Brown is a British composer. He was born in Tunbridge Wells. and from the age of 9 he was a chorister at Westminster Abbey. He studied under director of music David Lepine at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and then at the Royal Academy of Music with Lennox Berkeley, and with Boris Blacher at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. He was also a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge between 1962 and 1965. In 1969 Brown went on to teach composition at the Royal Academy, where he stayed for nearly 40 years: his pupils there and at Cambridge included Kit Armstrong, Charlotte Baskerville, Dominy Clements, Jonathan Pitkin and John Webb. He is a composition supervisor at the University of Cambridge and has been active as conductor, choral trainer and examiner.
