Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

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Christmas Old and New

Saturday 6th December 2025

The warm interior of Holy Trinity Church sparkled with fairy lights, a richly decorated Christmas tree stood in the chancel, and choir members sported splashes of festive red on black concert dress. The pews filled with expectant audience members of all ages, the orchestra took their seats, and the stage was set for our Christmas matinee concert on Saturday 6th December.

As promised, the singers and musicians delivered a richly varied programme of the traditional and the modern, the old and the new, devised and conducted by our Musical Director Jim Bate. The concert opened with a delicate, haunting piece, Peace on Earth, by Errollyn Wallen, who is the current Master of the King’s Music. The first half also included arrangements of traditional carols by Stanley Vann, the RLSBC’s founder, and Lee Dunleavy, our previous Musical Director. String players of the Beauchamp Sinfonietta took us back to the Baroque period with the Sinfonia from Handel’s Messiah, and Colin Druce on organ played a contemporary version of the 15th century Advent hymn ‘Veni veni Emmanuel’. Perhaps the highlight of the first half, for both choir and audience, was a beautiful piece for upper voices, two violins and piano by Edward Elgar, The Snow.

There were more Baroque treats to come in the second half: J S Bach’s chorale prelude In Dulci Jubilo on organ, two well known choruses from Handel’s Messiah for choir and orchestra (augmented by trumpets), and the enchanting Christmas Concerto by Arcangelo Corelli, again played by the Beauchamp Sinfonietta. By way of the modern, we had a spirited version of Ding Dong by a contemporary American composer, and after the third of our audience carols, Hark the Herald Angels (with descant, of course!), the concert ended on a real high with a sumptuous, full throttle arrangement of O Holy Night by Darius Battiwalla with organ and orchestra. It was very evident from the body language and the big smiles that the singers were thoroughly enjoying themselves in this piece!

One of the lovely things about a Christmas concert is that it offers individual singers in the choir the opportunity to shine in short solo parts, and we were very proud of sopranos Emma Hodges, Claire Knowles and Madeleine Warren and tenor Joseph Lingard for stepping out of the ranks and singing so beautifully and confidently. Another tradition of which we’re very proud is that of taking a retiring collection in support of a charity chosen by the Mayor of Royal Leamington Spa, who is our President; this year, Cllr Ruggy Singh nominated Flourish (please click here), a local charity which provides mental health support for teenage girls. Thanks to the generosity of our audience, we raised £462 for them.

We’re pleased to say that we shall be singing more of Handel’s music next term, as his Coronation Anthems will feature in our spring concert Thrones in Harmony on 28th March, alongside Mozart’s Coronation Mass and another Concerto Grosso by Corelli. If you came to our Christmas concert and enjoyed it, or if you missed it but are tempted by what you’ve read here, please put the date in your diary now. Tickets are already on sale!

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Featured News

RLSBC to take part in Mahler VIII

Sunday 30th November 2025

Members of our choir will join singers from seven other local choirs for a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand in Coventry Cathedral on May 16th 2026.

Rehearsals begin early in the New Year for this exciting event, with choirs rehearsing separately to start with before coming together in the weeks leading up to the performance. The orchestra will be the Leamington Sinfonia, and the conductor Joe Davies.

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler, composed in 1906, is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. As it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is normally presented with far fewer than a thousand performers, and Mahler himself disapproved of the name.

The Eighth Symphony's two parts combine the sacred text of the 9th-century Latin hymn Veni creator spiritus with the secular text from the closing passages from Goethe's 19th-century dramatic poem Faust. Despite the evident disparities within this juxtaposition, the work as a whole expresses a single idea, that of redemption through the power of love.

There are eight vocal soloists, who in the second half of the work are assigned to dramatic roles represented in Goethe's text. The singers are divided into two separate four part choirs, plus a children's choir. These forces, alongside an augmented orchestra, will guarantee an impressive sound in the splendid acoustic of Coventry Cathedral.

We are tremendously excited to have been invited to take part in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we very much hope you will join us in Coventry Cathedral on May 16th.

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