Nicola Lisle looks forward to a concert celebrating Commotio’s new Christmas CD

If there’s one CD that deserves to be in every Christmas stocking this year, it’s Commotio’s The Rose in the Middle of Winter.

This gorgeous collection of carols by Bob Chilcott — who was recently described by The Observer as “a contemporary hero of British choral music” — was released by Naxos on November 4 and entered the official classical music charts at No.10.

Now there’s a chance to hear some of the carols performed live at a special launch concert this Saturday, in the glorious setting of St John the Evangelist Church in Oxford.

The CD was recorded over three days at Keble College last April, and for both Bob and Commotio it was very much a labour of love.

“I am really pleased with it,” says Bob. “They are a wonderful choir. There are loads of good amateur choirs, but I think they are quite a way above the norm. To have a choir that isn’t professional at that level is very unusual.”

“Working with Bob was a great privilege,” comments Commotio conductor Matthew Berry. “It was a fantastic experience, the best three days of our choral life.

“The great thing about Bob’s music is that it demands such crystalline care because of the way it’s crafted. The consonants have to be very crisp.

“Because he is a singer, he seems to know what the voice is capable of. One of the sopranos who did the recording wrote a blog, and one of the main points was that you could sing Bob’s music for three days without any sense of exhaustion, and that is because the lines are very pure, yet it in no way compromises what he wants to write. Everything fits together beautifully.”

The centrepiece of the CD is the 23-minute carol sequence On Christmas Night, which was commissioned for the University Christian Church in Austin, Texas, in 2010.

“They wanted a Christmas piece that they could use in the context of a service, but also have what they called a pageant going on in front of the music,” explains Bob. “So these people danced and moved in costume. It was very nicely done.

“The idea was that the piece was written as a sequence, following the Christmas story, but with readings in the middle. What I’ve done is combine traditional melodies with new ones, and I really enjoyed doing that.”

Other tracks on the CD include Bob’s 2011 arrangement of Silent Night for the 50th anniversary of the Carols for Choirs series, well-known pieces such as The Shepherd’s Carol (2000) and The Heart-in-Waiting (2008), and a number of newer songs from 2012 and 2013, most of which have not been recor-ded before.

The launch concert will feature eight a capella tracks from the CD, along with a Christmas carol from the choir’s 2012 recording of choral music by Francis Pott.

“It’s a relatively short concert,” says Matthew. “Then there’ll be wine and canapés on the house, and a chance to meet Bob and buy our new CD. It’s a free concert with a retiring collection, because these projects are very expensive!”

  • Commotio: The Rose in the Middle of Winter
  • Saturday, 7.30pm
  • St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford
  • Free entry (retiring collection)