When it comes time to decide on the Christmas music repertoire for my choirs for the coming festive season, I always like to include one or two new compositions or arrangements along with the ‘old favourites’. The old favourites allow for a focus on preserving the traditions of the season; on presenting audiences with pieces that they are familiar with and enjoy listening to; and reduces pressure of my choirs to have to learn lots of new repertoire each season. New compositions and arrangements, on the other hand, provide choirs with the excitement and challenges of learning some of the many wonderful recent additions to the choral repertoire by living composers. Sharing these with their audiences then serves to keep the festive season fresh and vital for everyone.
My Choral Compositions & Arrangements for Christmas
The following titles from my catalogue are all relatively new Christmas choral music compositions and arrangements. I would invite you to peruse them all and would be delighted if you were to select one or more for your next Christmas concert(s). Each one has a little ‘something special’ to make it appealing to your choristers and your audiences. Enjoy!
Upper Voices
Dormi, Jesu! — SSA choir, a cappella. A lullaby-like work, with flowing lines of quavers in triple time and a soprano melody that occasionally provides cross-rhythmic interest.
Hodie, Christus natus est — SSAA choir, with triangle & tambour. A lilting setting of the traditional Latin text with a medieval flavour.
Tu scendi dalle stelle (From starry skies descending) — 2 Part choir and SSA choir, with piano and optional descant/flute. Amongst the oldest of Christmas songs in Italy, this arrangement features both Italian and English lyrics.
Lower Voices
Noël Nouvelet — TTBB choir, with tambourine and finger cymbals. Dating from the 15th Century, this rhythmically buoyant arrangement captures the exuberance of the Christmas spirit, proclaiming the good news of the birth of the newborn King.
Mixed Voices
As I Out Rode This Enderes Night (The Coventry Shepherds Carol) — SATB choir, a cappella. From the same 15th Century Christmas pageant as the well-known and very popular Lully, Lullay, also known as The Coventry Carol.
Bambino dalle stelle (Child of the Stars) — SATB choir, with piano. Based on the traditional Italian Christmas carol Tu scendi dalla stelle (From Starry Skies Descending), this arrangement has English lyrics.
Hodie, Christus natus est — SSATB choir, with triangle & tambour. A lilting setting of the traditional Latin text with a medieval flavour.
Patapan — SSATB choir, a cappella. A traditional French carol centred on the birth of Jesus Christ, told from the perspective of simple folk playing simple instruments like flutes and drums.
See the Baby Boy — SAB choir, soprano solo and SSS semi-chorus, with piano. A very catchy Christmas song with a calypso feel, suitable for secondary school and community choirs.
Find out more about my Christmas music for choirs
To find more detail about each of these pieces, including sample score pages, audio tracks and purchasing information, simply click on any of the titles above.
Purchase online for immediate download
All of my Christmas music arrangements are available for online purchase and immediate download — Great if you’re running short on time to get some new pieces into your library! Simply go to my website, select Christmas from the Categories bar and then click on title you’re interested in.
Coming soon
Especially for my colleagues in Australia, and just in time for Christmas 2019, I’ll soon be releasing arrangements of “Christmas in Australia”. Some of you will remember this as the title song from the 2005 tele-movie Blinky Bill’s White Christmas, as sung by Christine Anu. So keep a look-out for this one – its sure to be a crowd pleaser!
