MACMILLAN CANCER SUPPORT

CHRISTMAS CAROL CONCERT

Chelmsford Cathedral

10.12.08

As they have for the past five years, the Waltham Singers led the singing for this sell-out Christmas Concert.

Their generosity brings several key benefits: the congregation singing is boosted, the descants are thrilling, and the choral offerings are of a predictably high standard.

Andrew Fardell's inspirational conducting brought a spiritual strength to Luis de Victoria's Renaissance masterpiece O Magnum Mysterium. And, most effectively, a spare, brightly delineated For Unto Us A Child Is Born from Handel's Messiah, with an upliftingly emphatic “Wonderful!”. Berlioz Shepherds' Farewell was warmly sung, with sensitive accompaniment from the Cathedral's Assistant Master of the Music, Tom Wilkinson.

The reading included both scriptural and secular. A A Milne's advice on giving Christmas gifts, Dylan Thomas's haunted, gas lit Christmas in Wales, and an appropriate lesson in charitable giving from motivational guru Tom Krause, read by Angela Lodge from BBC Essex. Our local radio station is a great supporter of Macmillan, and if you didn't manage to get a ticket for this popular concert, you can hear it broadcast on Christmas Eve, with a repeat on Christmas Day.