King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. This college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city.
A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas and 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.
Sir John Milford Rutter is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.
Anglican church music is music that is written for Christian worship in Anglican religious services, forming part of the liturgy. It mostly consists of pieces written to be sung by a church choir, which may sing a cappella or accompanied by an organ.
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.
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is an English Christmas carol that first appeared in 1739 in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems. The carol, based on Luke 2:14, tells of an angelic chorus singing praises to God. As it is known in the modern era, it features lyrical contributions from Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, two of the founding ministers of Methodism, with music adapted from "Vaterland, in deinen Gauen" of Felix Mendelssohn's cantata Festgesang.
"O Come, All Ye Faithful", also known as "Adeste Fideles", is a Christmas carol that has been attributed to various authors, including John Francis Wade (1711–1786), John Reading (1645–1692), King John IV of Portugal (1604–1656), and anonymous Cistercian monks. The earliest printed version is in a book published by Wade. A manuscript by Wade, dating to 1751, is held by Stonyhurst College in Lancashire.
Harold Edwin Darke was an English composer and organist. He is particularly known for his choral compositions, which are an established part of the repertoire of Anglican church music. Darke had a fifty-year association with the church of St Michael, Cornhill, in the City of London.
Boris Ord, was a British organist and choirmaster of King's College, Cambridge (1929-1957). During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force. He is best known for his choral setting of Adam lay ybounden, his only published composition.
Once in Royal David's City is a Christmas carol originally written as a poem by Cecil Frances Alexander. The carol was first published in 1848 in her hymnbook Hymns for Little Children. A year later, the English organist Henry Gauntlett discovered the poem and set it to music.
Carols for Choirs is a collection of choral scores, predominantly of Christmas carols and hymns, first published in 1961 by Oxford University Press. It was edited by Sir David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques, and is a widely used source of carols in the British Anglican tradition and among British choral societies. A second volume was published in 1970, edited by David Willcocks and John Rutter, and the collection is now available in six volumes. A compendium edition was published later. In addition to music for Christmas, the collection also offers works that are suitable for other Christian festivals such as Advent and Epiphany.
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English Anglican choir. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's College, Cambridge, in 1441, to provide daily singing in his Chapel, which remains the main task of the choir to this day.
The "Sussex Carol" is a Christmas carol popular in Britain, sometimes referred to by its first line "On Christmas night all Christians sing". Its words were first published by Luke Wadding, a late 17th-century poet and bishop of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in a work called Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs (1684). It is unclear whether Wadding wrote the song or was recording an earlier composition.
Sir Philip Stevens Ledger, CBE, FRSE was an English classical musician, choirmaster and academic, best remembered as Director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge in 1974–1982 and of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1982 until he retired in 2001. He also composed choral music and played the organ, piano and harpsichord.
"In dulci jubilo" is a traditional Christmas carol. In its original setting, the carol is a macaronic text of German and Latin dating from the Middle Ages. Subsequent translations into English, such as J. M. Neale's arrangement "Good Christian Men, Rejoice" have increased its popularity, and Robert Pearsall's 1837 macaronic translation is a mainstay of the Christmas Nine Lessons and Carols repertoire. J. S. Bach's chorale prelude based on the tune is also a traditional postlude for Christmas services.
Dr. Arthur Henry Mann, known affectionately as "Daddy Mann", was an English organist, choirmaster, teacher and composer who served as Director of Music at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, for more than 50 years.
"The Three Kings", or "Three Kings From Persian Lands Afar", is a Christmas carol by the German composer Peter Cornelius. He set "Die Könige" for a vocal soloist, accompanied by Philip Nicolai's hymn "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern", which he erroneously thought was an Epiphany hymn. In fact, it is an Advent hymn in which the morning star is an allegory for the arrival of Jesus, not the Star of Bethlehem. In Cornelius' original second setting, the accompaniment was played on a piano but the English organist Ivor Atkins later arranged the accompaniment for choir, with the choir singing the words of the original hymn. The German words have been translated into English by H.N. Bate. The carol describes the visit of the Biblical Magi to the Infant Jesus during the Nativity and is also used as an Epiphany anthem.
The Choir of Trinity College, at Trinity College within the University of Melbourne, is a collegiate chapel choir modelled on the choirs at Cambridge and Oxford universities. The choir consists of 27 choral scholars. Under the supervision of the director of music, the choir and organ scholars provide music for regular services of Anglican worship in the college chapel as well as a schedule of public concert performances and recordings for ABC Classics.
