This Christmas eve, the annual Festival of Lessons and Carols concert will be held at Der Aa Church in the city of Groningen.
The Groninger Internet Courant reports that the Roden and Kampen Boys Choirs will be singing Christmas carols under the direction of Rintje te Wies with accompaniment by organists Jochem Schuurman and Sander van den Houten. In keeping with Anglican tradition, the musical performances will be interspersed with readings of the nine lessons from the story of Christmas in English by Alexandra van den Doel.
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is the name of the traditional Christmas Eve service which has been held some form in Cambridge, England since 1880. The Roden Boys Choir is a high calibre British-style choir with a broad Anglican choral music repertoire and was founded in 1985 in the Drenthe city of Roden. The Kampen Boys Choir is also based on the English Cathedral Choir tradition and has 22 trebles and 14 countertenors, tenors and basses. The Kampen choir was founded in 2000.
Performances by boys and girls choirs of the Lessons and Carols programme have been a Christmas tradition in Der Aa Kerk over the years. The Roder Choir has been performing the Lessons and Carols for nearly 25 years.
