Twelve Days to Christmas from Ely Cathedral

[Quilisma]

Readers may (or may not) be interested to know that each day from today until Christmas Day there will be new videos from Ely Cathedral Choir uploaded onto the Cathedral's YouTube channel, marking with carols the transition from Advent to the Nativity. The musical items were filmed in October, "as live" (i.e. no editing or splicing, and certainly no lip-synchronisation!), in three weekday evening sessions, featuring contributions from the girl choristers, boy choristers and gentlemen, both individually and together, and also an appearance of the Ely Imps. The Bishop of Ely introduces the series with a brief Advent Message here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT44dFfuPrw, and the first offering is Paul Mealor's A Spotless Rose, sung by the girls and men, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2GwXIA2zYg. We hope you find something to enjoy over the next few days.

[gradus]

Thanks for posting this very beautifully sung piece, looking forward to the others.

[Quilisma]

Thank YOU! Here are the next two installments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42dOWvLzmMw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD9ucg8zusg. Enjoy, or not, as the case may be.

[ardcarp]

Love the Trepte arrangement!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD9ucg8zusg

It goes almost 'Jonathan Harvey' at one point.

[BBMmk2]

Readers may (or may not) be interested to know that each day from today until Christmas Day there will be new videos from Ely Cathedral Choir uploaded onto the Cathedral's YouTube channel, marking with carols the transition from Advent to the Nativity. The musical items were filmed in October, "as live" (i.e. no editing or splicing, and certainly no lip-synchronisation!), in three weekday evening sessions, featuring contributions from the girl choristers, boy choristers and gentlemen, both individually and together, and also an appearance of the Ely Imps. The Bishop of Ely introduces the series with a brief Advent Message here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT44dFfuPrw, and the first offering is Paul Mealor's A Spotless Rose, sung by the girls and men, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2GwXIA2zYg. We hope you find something to enjoy over the next few days.

Thanks for the heads. Looks rather an interesting idea.

[Quilisma]

And now Biebl Ave Maria! This was right at the end of a very long evening session, and some of us were suffering quite a bit by that point. It's an exhausting piece too, even with countertenors bolstering the high tenor lines... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SnYQ__dy9M

[Quilisma]

Sorry to resurrect this, but I hope people are still enjoying these videos as more appear every day. There's no point in my posting any more links, as you can access them via the links I have already posted. Apparently these videos are being viewed and appreciated by people all around the world, and certainly the series has been carefully conceived as part of an outreach campaign for Advent and Christmas, jointly by the Cathedral and the Diocese, with the explicit encouragement of the Church of England. I daresay opinions will vary amongst choral music aficionados (they always do), particularly because we did not have the luxury of anything like the amount of painstaking preparation time which is a given in certain other choir environments, and because these are complete takes with any flaws left in; but it is what it is. Greetings from pre-festive Ely!

[cjsb]

I've really enjoyed all these - an excellent idea. Really good to hear Paul Trepte's arrangement of 'People Look East' again - I remember it from his time at St Edmundsbury in the 80s!