The 'Christmas Choirbook' is a collection of up-to-date, colorful arrangements of 22 Christmas songs from throughout the world. Among classics, dressed in new harmonic sounds, you will enjoy jazz and pop intonations, as well as gospel renditions of 'Go Tell It' and 'Joyful'. The skandinavien Christmas songs are particularly special: contemplative and musical, even droll as in the story about the Christmas troll in the finnish 'Tomtarnass Julnatt'.The 'Christmas Choirbook' offers many stylistic choices for the Christmas and Advent season choir music, so let the available CD (ED 9896-50) inspire you in the joyful singing of these pieces. Of course the recordings, meant only as a first and hopefully appealing impression, represent only a few of the many possible interpretations you will bring to the arrangements.Full verses were intentionally not recorded, although we did overlay simple instrumental accompaniments to the a cappella movements. In addition, the CD includes pure choire versions as well as some 'sing-a-longs', i.e. instrumental tracks for you to use as half-playback. / Choeur

This exclusive collection brings together 12 of Nico Muhly?s sacred works for mixed-voice choir. These vivacious fresh and dramatic pieces will make an impact whether in the church or in the concert hall and range from the intimate Lord keep us modest when we claim to the effervescent Bright Star Carol alongside service music such as Muhly?s Third Service. All are accessible to learn and offer choirs a new slant on contemporary choral music at its very best.  'Choral music has always been at the emotional core of my musical output. Even when I?m writing large-scale orchestral works (or indeed chamber music) I alwaysfind myself returning to techniques and textures I?ve greedily stolen from centuries of music from Tye to Howells early and recent. I try to design my own choral music primarily for use in worship where the measure of the success of the piece is if it helps guide the listeners? ears upwards and elsewhere as sacred architecture and the various rituals of the church themselves are meant to do. The specificity of music heard only in certain seasons is for me an important and thrilling element of the choral tradition: a Beethoven Symphony is welcome at any point in the year but an anthem for Candlemas works only then at a certain time of day and on a certain day of the year. With this functional spirit at the heart of the compositional process I hope that the music collected here makes equal sense in a concert setting. These works range from ordinaries of the mass to hymns to motets and represent a decade and a half of output.' - Nico Muhly