Ciorstaidh Beaton

One extraordinary sound. A new commission. A Christmas concert unlike any other. This Christmas, come and hear 150 singers and award-winning harpist Ciorstaidh Beaton fill the hall with music that moves between the familiar and the new. The GSA Choir’s Christmas concert brings together three very different musical worlds: the timeless choral writing of Benjamin Britten, the contemporary imagination of Jay Capperauld, and a brand-new work written especially for the GSA Choir. At the heart of the programme is the world premiere of Stars, a new commission by composer, Kim Porter, setting words by poet, Marjorie Pickthall. Looking up from a winter landscape, Pickthall’s poem moves from the slender moon and Orion to the vastness of the night sky. Porter’s new setting gives those words a new musical life; written for the GSA Choir and heard in performance for the very first time. Alongside Stars, we’ll perform both Jay Capperauld’s The Winter’s Brightening and Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, one of the great works of the Christmas choral repertoire with harpist Ciorstaidh Beaton. And, because Christmas should still be fun, expect some familiar festive favourites along the way.