Mixed Voices with optional Piano accompaniment (texts by Charles Dickens, William Blake, and others)
The music on which this work is based was written for productions of A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist at the Liverpool Playhouse in December 2000 and 2001. This Suite of Christmas songs can be performed by any four-part ensemble or choir (there were eight voices in the Liverpool Playhouse productions). The accompaniment is optional and need not necessarily be a piano. The Suite could be performed as part of a carol service or in a Christmas concert. It does not have to be done in its entirety or even in order, and it could be interwoven with suitable Christmas readings such as excerpts from Dickens' A Christmas Carol (though there are many others). Given their origin, the songs might lend themselves to some theatricalization, but this shouldn't go too far. (Stephen McNeff)