Advent Bits and Bobs

A couple stocking stuffers before Christmas

Friends, it’s been a lovely, chilly week here in Oxford, and as Advent continues to gather the world toward the coming light of Christmas, I’ve delighted in the strange, stark glories of the natural world in this season. Oxford is cast in the throes of hoarfrost and chill air, and the low, lumbering silver of morning mists across fallow meadows. Frozen leaves, jewelled with an intricate inset of ice are displayed along cycle paths like opulent brooches in a store window case. It’s a season of quieter and more plaintive tones, but nonetheless offers its own invitation into wonder. I’m filling up on these English Advent landscapes before I return to Colorado for a few weeks with family in a few days.

Two items on the list this week: a quick overview of my holiday recordings, for those of you curating your seasonal tunes; and a couple early stocking stuffers for your listening pleasure.

Streaming your favourite holiday music:

I’ve been amazed and delighted at how many folks have been listening to my seasonal albums and singles. There is still plenty of time to get in listening now and through the Christmas season, so make sure to check the albums out on your preferred streaming platform today. I’m posting links below to Spotify, but you can find all my music on any streaming site, from Apple Music, to Amazon Music, to YouTube, and beyond.

First up, it’s one of the great joys of a composer’s life when a collection of music becomes a perennial favourite for their listeners, as many of you have expressed that it the Midwinter Carols albums are for you and your families. If you haven’t listened to them yet, I hope you’ll enjoy my piano instrumental interpretations of luminous carols from across the ages:

As many of you also know, I’ve just released my first single in the Sound + Spirit series, Dawn Light. It is a soundscape of meditative string swells encapsulating the Advent theme of waiting for the coming of morning. It’s available everywhere music is streamed, so I hope you’ll give it a listen as well. If you are a paid subscriber, make sure to check out my earlier post, ‘Sound + Spirit I: Dawn Light,’ to read my accompanying essay reflection for the track.

Finally, I hope you’ll also give my other Christmas single a listen as well, The Christ Child’s Lullaby. This one was a little different, a fully-orchestrated reflection on the tender beauty of the traditional Scottish carol, Tàladh Chrìosda.

A Couple early stocking stuffers:

First: a podcast about Handel’s Messiah.

I was so delighted to be invited to share some thoughts about the Messiah with Shane Morris on the Upstream Podcast. We had a fantastic and wide-ranging conversation, and I hope you’ll check it out!

Second: an Advent playlist.

I’ve compiled some of my favourite hymns, choral anthems, and plainchants into what I hope is a meditative and edifying accompaniment for your Adventide reflections. Many of these pieces are works that I’ve sung in choir here in the UK, whether in Oxford and Cambridge Chapel Choirs, or in the parishes I’ve attended along the way. I’ve structured the playlist around chants for the ‘O’ Antiphons, an ancient set of chants used in the last seven Vespers leading up to Christmas in the Western Church, which reflect on different names of Christ (O Sapientia—‘O Wisdom; O Oriens—‘O Morning Star’, and so on). In between the chants are musical encapsulations of the Advent season: both the longing and waiting for the coming Christ the Redeemer, such as ‘Drop Down, ye heavens, from above’; and the expectant hope for the returning Christ the King, like ‘Lo, He Comes in Clouds Descending’. Juxtaposed together, these musical works, ancient and new, express that sense in which, even as we await the celebration of Christ’s birth in the Christmas season, in a larger sense, we continue to await, in the scope of cosmic history, the coming of Christ again to put all things to rights and unify all things in Himself. Advent is the moment when time begins to converge, from past and future, upon our present hope.

Enjoy folks!

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