[World Premiere] of My Original Christmas Carol "A Merry Christmas"

in #classical-music5 years ago (edited)

Hello everyone! Over the summer, I was asked to write a Christmas carol for the church Youth Choir to perform, and so I did. Several days ago, it was premiered. As a result, I am posting a video of that premiere here, as well as a little bit about the piece. Here is the video:

I utilized two poems for this, both of which are in the public domain. The first poem, which I used for the A section, is called "A Merry Christmas" and was written by Frances Ridley Havergal. I first found this poem online, and felt that it was quite inspirational, and almost immediately thought of the accompanying theme. However, it took me a while to harmonically develop, as is in the nature of a procrastinator.

The second poem which I utilized is called "An Old Christmas Carol," and, as far as I know, its author is not known. I found it in an edition of Everybody's Magazine which was online. I also thought this poem was nice, and as a result, made some revisions and created a theme for it. This became the B section.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with this performance! Thank you to Bob Morris and the Westminster Youth Choir for making this possible. Thank you also to the soloists (who I will not name in order to maintain privacy) as well as the Pianist Glenn Kinckner. Thank you also to Mrs. Kim Russell for working with the soloists as well as giving me compositional advice. Thank you also to Marcantonio Barone and Andrew Desiderio for their compositional advice.

Here are the lyrics:
A Merry Christmas to you!
For we serve the Lord with mirth,
And we carol forth glad tidings
Of our holy Savior's birth.
So we keep the olden greeting
With its meaning deep and true,
And wish a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year to You!

O wake ye, little children,
And be of lofty cheer.
Yon sun so high along the sky
Hath shone two thousand years.
And once it saw a little child
In manger lying undefiled,
And all about the cattle mild
Did lovingly draw near.
So wake ye little children,
and be of lofty cheer.

A Merry Christmas to you!
For we serve the Lord with mirth,
And we carol forth glad tidings
Of our holy Savior's birth.
So we keep the olden greeting
With its meaning deep and true,
And wish a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year to You!

Thanks for reading/listening to this! I will be posting the Christmas eve performance as well as the sheet music version later this week. Thank you to this community for providing a method of sharing my progress. Merry Christmas!

(Note) In order to encourage meaningful feedback on the platform, I will check comment trails of users who leave superficial comments (ie "Awesome post," or "Upvoted.") and will mute any users who exhibit a pattern of leaving "spammy" comments.

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Excellent Christmas song. The well-achieved choral textural is evident and the melodic line links us directly with Christmas. Congratulations

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