CONCERT PROGRAMME
Join us at one of our upcoming events, 2023-2024
York Minster's Advent Procession
Join York Minster’s worship to mark the start of Advent with an atmospheric candlelit service of music, readings and prayers for Advent, in celebration and anticipation of the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.
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The service starts in darkness before a single flame is used to spread light through the cathedral, with candles held by each member of the congregation.
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Singing alongside the Choir of York Minster, The Ebor Singers will sing the traditional Advent Antiphons for this atmospheric service.
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Free tickets must be booked in advance, and the service will also be broadcast live.
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A Ceremony
of Carols
Saturday 2nd December 2023, 7.30pm
St Lawrence's Church, York
​Britten's A Ceremony of Carols, alongside music by Howells, Chilcott and Macmillan.
Conductor Dr Paul Gameson leads The Ebor Singers in a captivating festive concert, performing Britten's iconic Christmas sequence. Few pieces capture the joy and expectation of Christmas quite as well as Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. This striking setting in eleven movements is scored for upper voices and harp. Britten began work on his Ceremony of Carols in 1942, after three very successful years in America. On board a Swedish cargo vessel bound for Britain, dodging German U-boats, Britten set some medieval poems from a book he had come across while berthed in Nova Scotia.
Alongside Britten's sequence, The Ebor Singers will ready you for Christmas with timeless plainsong weaving in and out of seasonal favourites by Howells, Chilcott and Macmillan and inspirational new carols. This candlelit performance of Britten's A Ceremony of Carols has become a popular annual York tradition, and is an atmospheric start to the festive season!
Tickets: £16 (£10 under 25s and students, under 16s free of charge)
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In Dulci Jubilo
A joint concert with the York Waits.
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Saturday 16th December, 12pm, St Mary's Church Beverley
Sunday 17th December, 7.30pm, St Olave's Church York
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Seasonal music from Renaissance Europe for Choir and period instruments.
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The Christmas Story inspired composers of the late renaissance to write frequently multiple versions of texts such as In Dulci Jubilo, Puer Natus Est, Angelus ad Pastores, in the form of hymns and more extended choral works.
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This joint concert draws on some of the grand works of Michael Praetoius, Schutz, Eccard, Lassus and William Byrd, combining the twenty voices of The Ebor Singers with the sackbuts, curtals, recorders, flutes and violin of The York Waits. Additional religious and secular instrumental items will also feature the Waits’ Noyse of Shawms, crumhorns, bagpipes and hurdy gurdy.
2024
Bookings for tickets open soon
February - March
Lent and Holy Week
Join us each Thursday evening during Lent (from Thursday 22nd February) for our annual series of Compline services in York Minster. During Holy Week, we will also sing a collection of evenings following the Holy Week narrative. All are welcome - more information will be published early 2024.
27th April 2024
Festival of Faith and Music
Organised by the Church Times and the RSCM, this new venture of a Festival of Faith and Music offers a stimulating programme of music and worship, talks and workshops in the wonderful city of York. The aim has been to put together a weekend that celebrates church music in all its glory – and that will send you home encouraged, inspired and equipped with new, and practical ideas to try in your home parish. The Ebor Singers are delighted to be involved, offering a practical demonstration of the Great Sacred Music resource book, and Compline in York Minster.
2nd March 2024
Baroque Passion
The Chapter House, York Minster
By candlelight
Experience the passionate and poignant music of Bach, Scarlatti, Charpentier, Lotti and Purcell, as we see Peter's guilt denying Jesus depicted in Charpentier's oratorio Le Reniement de St Pierre, share in Mary's sorrow at the foot of the cross in Scarlatti's Stabat mater, and find solace in the tender optimism of Bach's Komm, Jesu, komm.
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Ticket bookings available soon.
18th May 2024
Underneath the Stars
The Chapter House, York Minster
By candlelight
The Ebor Singers draws on music from the 16th century to the present day, to explore light and darkness, love and grief, and the night sky: from the Renaissance glories of the evening service of Compline, to Romantic visions of the beauty of the night, to the shimmering beauty of Esenwalds' Stars and Whitacre's Sleep, to arrangements of popular classics. The programme's main work is O'Regan's thrilling The Ecstasies Above, describing the beauty of music in the heavens.
Music to include Parsons' Ave Maria, Esenwalds' Stars and Whitacre's Sleep.
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Details and ticket bookings available soon.
29th June 2024
Rachmaninov Vespers
St Lawrence's Parish Church, York
By candlelight
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‘Even in my dreams I could not have imagined that I would write such a work.’
Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil (or, as it is popularly known, Vespers) Op.37 is a beautiful and moving setting of texts from the Russian Orthodox Church liturgy. It was composed in 1915 just before the Russian Revolution and is considered by many to be the culmination of an era of Russian sacred music. Rachmaninov was so fond of the work that he requested that the 'Nunc Dimittis' be sung at his funeral. Best known for his symphonies and piano works, this brilliant choral work - a long-time favourite of the choir - is conceived on a symphonic scale.
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Details and ticket bookings available soon.
"The Ebor Singers impart a natural, unflamboyant grace"
The Independent