The Lamb (for SATB choir and brass band)

It’s a lamb…and a child!

This is the arrangement of The Lamb for brass band and mixed choir, and the photographs are from my visit to wonderful friends and their beautiful part of the world in the Catlins, New Zealand. I spent a day assisting with the sheep on a farm, so I feel the pictures are appropriate for this song!

The Lamb is another of my most popular songs. Here is its story:

It started out as a song for primary school children, in particular the school choir at Grangetown Primary School in Sunderland. It has quite a wide range for children and the melismas in the melody make the timings tricky, but they mastered it and in fact it became one of their, and the school’s  favourite songs. In following years, the whole school sang it in their Christmas concerts and services. This process has also happened at Alnwick South First School, where it was performed one year with an accompaniment from the local high school wind orchestra.

There is also an arrangement for high voices with piano accompaniment which is included in the Sea Pie Parcel collection of songs for young choirs and classes, where it is in unison voices apart from the round at the end.

Following this success, I made an arrangement of the song for SATB choir, specifically for the Rock Festival Choir, a chamber choir based in Northumberland and his has been performed by them on several occasions, as well as by choirs in New Zealand (including the Southern Consort of Voices in Dunedin) and around the world.

Today’s Advent Calendar arrangement of the SATB version was completed for performances by the Alnwick and District Choral Society in their annual festive concerts with the Reg Vardy Brass Band from County Durham.