Video: Hear new version of The 12 Days of Christmas performed by Leighton Buzzard Festival Singers

Leighton Buzzard Festival Singers’ Christmas concert on 16 December brought a packed audience to St Barnabas’ Church for a joyful and varied festive programme.

Opening with Parts 1 and 3 of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, the choir, accompanied by the excellent Aurelian Ensemble, gave a positive and confident account of this exhilarating music, coping well with Bach’s vocal demands. In the Chorale sections the choir produced a finely integrated and cohesive sound which reflects well the training of their new musical director. Samuel Huston.

The four professional soloists all contributed superbly. Highlights were the duet Prepare yourself Zion, sung by soprano Emily Rooke and baritone Edward Price, for all the world like an operatic love duet, and the arioso Behold the Bridegroom, Full of Grace, beautifully sung by the counter-tenor Richard Decker. Owen Winter, tenor, delivered the narrative recitatives with great clarity and assurance,

Vaughan Williams’ well-loved Fantasia on Christmas Carols began with a beautifully played cello solo. Baritone Edward Price’s rich and magisterial voice presided over the remainder of the work with the choir, in a seamlessly woven sequence of lovely traditional English carols. A heart-warming experience.

In two lovely excerpts from Berlioz’ Childhood of Christ, the choir’s performance of the tender Shepherds’ Farewell was followed by the soprano aria O My Soul, sung by Emily Rooke with beautiful clarity and gentle phrasing.

The Festival Singers’ president, Philip Stopford, an eminent church musician, organist and composer, had produced the novelty of the programme: his new arrangement of the carol The Twelve Days of Christmas. Philip introduced his composition in an entertaining manner and then we enjoyed its first performance, for soloists, choir and orchestra with the composer on triangle! It ingeniously passed through all the major keys (one for each of the twelve days}, cleverly introducing snippets of various well-known tunes which linked with the song. It brought the house down!

This was the second major concert directed by Samuel Huston, the Festival singers’ talented new conductor. It is proving to be a very fruitful partnership; long may it continue.