A ROSE IN WINTER 2024 - a celebration of Christmas in song and story

A ROSE IN WINTER

A celebration of Christmas in song and story

The Choir of All Saints Cathedral

directed by Paul Halley
'A Rose In Winter' 2024
Sunday, December 15, 2024, 4:00 PM
The Cathedral Church of All Saints
1 330 Cathedral Lane, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 2Z1
Produced by TO THE POINT PRODUCTIONS
available here on eventrbrite

Saturday, December 14, 2024, 4:00 PM
St. John's Anglican Church
64 Townsend St, Lunenburg, NS
Produced by Musique Royale
available at www.musiqueroyale.com/events

Please note:
Tickets sold here on Eventbrite are for the Sunday, December 15, 2024 performance at The Cathedral of All Saints, Halifax - 4:00 pm.

For tickets for the Lunenburg performance on Saturday, December 14, 2024 at 4:00 pm, please go to www.musiqueroyale.com/events

A ROSE IN WINTER - A celebration of Christmas in song and story.
Grammy Award-winner Paul Halley directs The Choir of All Saints Cathedral in a concert performance celebrating this joyous season. This year’s presentation will feature members of the choir reading the stories and poems that alternate with the choir's choral offerings.
Paul Halley writes in a recent newsletter:
"A Rose in Winter, now in its third year, is the successor to fifteen years of A King’s Christmas which we presented while I was director of the King’s Chapel Choir. This in turn was the successor to fifteen years of Christmas Angelicus concerts in Connecticut with Chorus Angelicus and Gaudeamus, choirs Meg and I founded back in 1992. For those concerts we had the same narrator every year, a dear friend of mine, John McDonough, sadly no longer with us. John was not only an outstanding actor, but he was also blessed with the sweetest voice and temperament, leavened with a wicked sense of humour. He was a veritable mine of all things literary. I always looked forward to the new and often obscure readings he brought to the concerts. He had an unerring ear for what would work with the music selections. During those years I never had to worry about the narrator.

With the launching of A King’s Christmas in 2007 I did have to worry about a narrator. My anxiety on the subject began each year in early January, and often would continue right up to the first performance. This is not to say we haven’t had some superb narrators over the years. On one occasion I thought I had found the ‘permanent’ narrator but that didn’t pan out. So, this year, after my third attempt at landing the right person failed, I decided the challenge of this narrator business had reached ridiculous proportions. And it was not remotely conducive to creative planning for the music component of these concerts which, after all, is probably the main reason why so many of you show up. I realized that many of the choristers in the current Cathedral Choir sang in the King’s Chapel Choir back in the days when we presented “Unrobed” – an evening’s entertainment in which the choir let its hair down, displaying hidden talents, particularly of the dramatic variety. Do I really need to keep importing talent from afar when we have such actors, poets and storytellers in our midst?
So, this year (I’m not saying for the rest of time) we will have our usual component of music and readings, but the readings will be handled by members of the choir, and we’ll continue to maintain the preferred ratio of 4:1, music to readings. I’ll be particularly curious to know your thoughts on this new approach and hope to see you at the concerts."
- Paul Halley (October 26, 2024 Mailchimp letter to subscriber list)

The Halifax concert is a presentation of TO THE POINT PRODUCTIONS, Margaret Race, proprietor, on behalf of Paul Halley and members of The Cathedral Choir. Margaret Race is the spouse of Paul Halley with whom she has collaborated on music productions for more than 30 years. Contact the producer through the Contact section of this Eventbrite concert listing organizer profile. Please do not contact the Cathedral about this event.

A ROSE IN WINTER - a celebration of Christmas in song and story - now in its third year, is a continuation of the tradition (A King's Christmas) that Paul Halley began in Halifax in 2008 with the King's Chapel Choir. Paul continues this tradition with The Choir of All Saints Cathedral in the presentation entitled "A Rose In Winter". Paul Halley is Director of Music at The Cathedral Church of All Saints.

Host or Publisher TO THE POINT presents The Cathedral Choir & Halley