Three variants on The Night Before Christmas

A piece for 2 soloists, SATB choir, orchestra and jazz band

One of my favourite places for a day out is Hay-on-Wye, centre of the secondhand book trade. On a visit there in 1995 I bought Martin Gardner’s book ‘The Annotated Night before Christmas’. This book, containing numerous prequels, sequels and parodies of the original poem, gave me the idea of a composite entertainment for the second half of our Christmas concert that year: the famous Clement Clarke poem in 8 segments sung by tenor soloist accompanied by the chamber orchestra, interspersed with the chamber choir singing ‘The nocturnal segment preceding Yuletide’ to Anglican chant, and a baritone singing ‘The Night before Christmas in “Hip” Talk’ accompanied by the jazz band. Festive frolics all round…