Carols at Merton

The Advent Carol Services take place on Saturday 29 November and Sunday 30 November at 5:45pm. All are welcome and the congregation will be seated from 5:15pm. Two new pieces have been commissioned for the service and for the Merton Choirbook: James Lark has set Rowan Williams’s poem Advent Calendar, and Matthew Martin has added to the collection of Advent Antiphon settings with O Rex Gentium. Other choral works will include carols and motets by Palestrina, Parsons, Mendelssohn, Sandstrom and Willcocks.

The College’s Christmas Carol Service is on Thursday 4 December at 8:30pm. For this service, Bob Chilcott has set words from Shakespeare’s Hamlet for his carol The Bird of Dawning, and the winning carol in the Choir & Organ competition will be premièred too. Familiar congregational carols will be sung, and all are welcome.

On Friday 12 December at 7:00pm, the College Choir sings a Carol Service at St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge. All Mertonians, their friends and families are very welcome.

The choir’s CD of Christmas Carols On Christmas Night has been released as the cover CD on the Christmas issue of the BBC Music Magazine. It is available from all good newsagents and record stores.