A Christmas Special: Michael Praetorius

Michael Praetorius’s music was celebrated again in his anniversary year of 2021, and thanks to a wonderful 1994 disc from the Gabrieli Consort, his music for Christmas has become his most loved calling card. Described as “Lutheran music at its most beguiling” as well as “community music at its best’, allowing amateur singers, congregations, children’s choirs and local instrumentalists to join in. Through his settings of the great carols Von Himmel hoch, In dulci jubilo, Puer natus in Bethlehem, Quem pastores laudavere and Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, we will travel through the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany stories, while exploring contemporary art and history. Patrick Craig is a Vicar Choral at St Paul’s Cathedral. For twenty years he combined this with an international career singing over a thousand concerts with the world-renowned early music consort The Tallis Scholars. He also sings with the award-winning group The Cardinall’s Musick. He founded and conducts this country’s leading all-female professional choir, Aurora Nova. He has conducted concerts for the BBC Proms, the Brighton, Lichfield and Aldeburgh Festivals, and with the City of London Sinfonia. As a Cambridge history graduate with a lifelong interest in the arts, he has gone on to lead choral workshops for amateur singers across the world, where he places music in its historical and cultural context. He regularly lectures for the St Paul’s Adult Education programme and for John Hall’s Venice Courses, which have allowed him to incorporate his interests in theology, art and poetry.