Christmas with Vasari: three words that have people reaching for their shopping list to add dried fruit and marzipan, and digging out their festive jumpers! It is one of our favourite concerts of the year where we get the chance to celebrate Christmas in song with our friends and family in the wonderfully atmospheric church of St Paul’s Covent Garden.

And what a celebration it is this year: Hallelujahs and Alleluias abound!

As ever we have a mix of music from across the ages, ranging from Giovanni Gabrieli in the second half of the 16th century and Samuel Scheidt in the first half of the 17th, to carols from our own era written by living composers. We are particularly pleased to be singing the version of Tomorrow shall be my dancing day by Jeremy Filsell, a dear friend of the choir and a former accompanist, now Director of Music at St Thomas Church, 5th Avenue in New York – a most prestigious appointment (we are thrilled to be visiting Jeremy in St Thomas’s to perform Bach’s Mass in B minor on 10 April next year). Also we are delighted to be performing the Coventry Carol by our very own Dan Burges, a long-standing 1st tenor in the choir.

Any concert entitled ‘Hallelujah’ has to have a certain chorus in it and the first half finishes with some Christmas extracts from Handel’s Messiah, including that evergreen ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.

No Christmas concert can go by without a healthy dollop of Sir John Rutter’s music and we are especially pleased to be able to help celebrate his long overdue knighthood. Other stalwarts of the Christmas carol scene, Andrew Carter, Bob Chilcott, David Willcocks also feature. There is a chance to hear a beautiful lesser-known carol by Herbert Howells Long, long ago and, in a lighter vein towards the end of the evening, we whizz through Ben Parry’s arrangement of Jingle Bells and close with a Carol Medley by Jonathan Rathbone – two of our favourites.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing our selection of festive music with you; also to giving you the opportunity to sing along heartily in the audience carols. It is always such a joyous evening, so please join us to kick start your Christmas in the best possible way!