Compose a Carol

Working with The Ebor Singers in creative and performance workshops, GCSE and A-Level students submit carol compositions which are recorded for their composition portfolio and performed in front of the school.  The 1st and 2nd prize entries are featured in choir's Christmas concert.

Carol Competition review:  19 December 2006
We must always be looking to the next generation: the continued health of music demands it. So the Ebor Singers and their conductor Paul Gameson deserve plaudits for their new carol competition for young composers.

The two leading works were unveiled on Sunday in a concert that aligned Britten's A Ceremony of Carols, in its original, treble-voice version, with other carols of the last century.

Topaz Pauls's setting of Hush! My Dear , by the 18th-century hymn-writer Isaac Watts, was a worthy winner.  A pretty melody, heard at first from a soprano soloist, framed the piece, with a contrasting minor section between: a neat shape, easily comprehended, full of promise. Runner-up Ester Lusty gave Herrick's What Sweeter Music? more hymn-like treatment, pleasingly harmonised.

(Martin Dreyer, December 19 2006, Yorkshire Evening Press)