What’s our favourite time of the year, as choral singers? It surely has to be Christmas, and specifically, that most traditional of Christmas events: The Nine Lessons and Carols.

Sadly, with dwindling numbers in church choirs throughout the country, and many churches moving away from traditional services, large numbers of  singers find themselves longing for the opportunity to sing, not only the traditional carols, with descants galore, but also some more challenging and varied Christmas pieces.

Choral Holidays is coming to the rescue, riding on our musical sleigh! We return to the beautiful setting of Balliol College Oxford for our own Nine Lessons and Carols day. This is your chance to let your hair down, vocally and spend a joyous day preparing for, and enjoying singing our own traditional service.

And that’s not all. Included in your day will be a 2 course Christmas dinner in the college hall. What better way to really get your Christmas celebrations started?

There will be traditional carols: Once in Royal David’s City, O come all ye faithful, Hark! the herald angels, all with their descants, plus Stille Nacht, God rest you merry, gentlemen, and then some very special pieces including Morten Lauridsen’s haunting setting of O magnum Mysterium, Paul Carr’s beautiful version of In the Bleak Midwinter, William Mathias’ riproaring carol Sir Christèmas, Paul Ayres gorgeous setting of O little town of Bethlehem, and John Gardner’s jaunty Tomorrow shall be my dancing day. All of this with the usual Choral Holidays mixture of laughter and productive work. The day will be led by our musical director, Jeff Stewart.

We will meet at 10.30 for an 11am start, rehearsing until 1pm. Then its lunch, provided in the glorious dining hall of Balliol College, surrounded by portraits of the great and the good of the history of the college. After lunch we will rehearse on until 5.30pm and have the service, complete with traditional prayers and readings at 6pm.

All your music and your lunch will be included in the fee of £65 for the day.