This year’s London Carol Service was as magical as ever, and a perfect way to start off the Christmas season.
After weeks of hard work from our choirs, everyone got on a coach and made their way to St Mary Abbotts Church, Kensington. The afternoon consisted of lots of rehearsals, laughter and pizza before it was time for the service to start.
Following the opening prayers, our Head of Choral, Camilla from Upper Sixth (Year 13) beautifully sang the opening solo verse of Once in Royal.
Aside from a beautiful selection of congregational carols and choir numbers, my favourite moment was the annual occurrence of happy shrieks from the choir (myself included) after processing out after the service.
I think it captures what is always a particularly special event to conclude the year and is something I will undoubtedly miss after Downe!
– Camilla, Head of Choral
The Carol service is always so fulfilling and a great display of all the effort that we put into choral music at Downe House.
– Alice and Olivia, Joint Heads of Music
The choirs performed brilliantly. Prima Voce bookended the choral offerings with Todd’s An Earthly Blessing and Stopford’s A Christmas Blessing. Polyphonix sang an exciting arrangement of Pentatonix’s version of Mary Did You Know contrasted with the quiet and reflective arrangement by Huff of O Holy Night.
In Harmony sang The Marvellous Birth by Chilcott and Once Removed sang Sussex Carol, arranged by our very own Head of Music Performance, Mr Gill. Cantabile, our pupil led choir, then performed a beautiful arrangement by Forrest of The First Noel.
All of the choir items were interspersed with classic congregational carols, which were elevated by a fantastic professional brass quintet. Our singers did themselves very proud, and a lovely time was had by all!
Head to the Downe House Music Instagram account to see a behind-the-scenes video of the concert!
Click the photo below to see the full album from the Carol Service.
