Experience a rare opportunity to hear some of the country’s finest ensemble singers and orchestral musicians perform the most beautiful Christmas music – presented in some of our acoustically finest church spaces.
Valen Vocal Ensemble and musicians from the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra invite you to a warm and peaceful moment in the run-up to Christmas – a concert that lets calm settle in and allows the music to fill the room with a festive atmosphere.
On stage are eight professional singers, five string players, and a harpist. Together they present a programme that unites classical Christmas works with well-known and beloved carols, in arrangements ranging from the traditional to the innovative.
The concert opens with excerpts from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, where the heavenly interplay between choir and harp creates a magical start to the evening. This is followed by some of our most cherished Christmas songs – in both old and new guise – before the orchestra steps forward with Arcangelo Corelli’s famous Christmas Concerto (Concerto grosso).
The audience will then hear excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, including the powerful “Hallelujah” chorus, before the concert concludes as it began – with Britten’s deeply moving A Ceremony of Carols.