Festival of Saint Cecilia
The Festival of Saint Cecilia is held each year as a tribute to the Patron Saint of Music and brings together over 1000 people to celebrate music and musicians.
The Festival of Saint Cecilia 2011, which took place on 23 November at Westminster Cathedral and Banqueting House, was a great success. Read a review by Carolyn Howlett from Manchester Mid-day Concerts Society.
The 2012 Festival will take place on Wednesday 21 November at St Paul's Cathedral and Merchant Taylors' Hall. We are pleased to announce that this year's anthem composer is Alec Roth, and that the festival will be themed in celebration of our patron, Her Majesty the Queen's, Diamond Jubilee.
Booking will open in September 2012. In the meantime, save the date!
About the Festival of Saint Cecilia
The Festival of Saint Cecilia is our biggest event of the year and features a service at Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral or St Paul's Cathedral and is followed by a reception and lunch.
The choirs of Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral and St Paul's all join their voices in the service of praise to the Patron Saint of Music. A unique feature of the service each year is the performance of a new anthem, specially commissioned for the Festival by the Musicians Benevolent Fund and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. Composers of anthems for previous festivals include Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, John Tavener, John Rutter, Roxanna
Panufnik, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Tarik O’Regan, Jonathan Dove and Ronald Corp.
Find out more about the festival and the history behind it.
2011 Festival of Saint Cecilia Anthem
Working with national singing programme
Sing Up and the Choir Schoo
ls’ Association, a new initiative this year is to promote the Festival of Saint Cecilia anthem across the UK to cathedrals, parish churches and faith schools as well as established organisations involved with singing.
The initiative was launched on 28 February in Birmingham and supports Sing Up’s strong ethos to place singing at the heart of every school child’s life, in the belief that singing can change lives and build stronger communities.
Ronald Corp’s anthem, a setting of Psalm 150
Laudate Dominum, has been written in several versions so it can be sung according to the skill of the choir. Faber Music have published
Sing a New Song performance guides, also featuring anthems by Sally Beamish and Christopher Fox.
The full score is available to purchase via download at
Ronald Corp's website.
You can listen to a recording of
Laudate Dominum in the audio player below:
A special version of the anthem was premiered at the Festival of Saint Cecilia on 23 November 2011.