Choral Christmas: Silent Night… in silence

At 10am GMT on each day of Advent I am posting a video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice – with the occasional quirky video thrown in for good measure! You can catch up with the full Choral Christmas here.

Silent Night, performed by The Seaton Singers

On a technical level, let’s be honest, this video is rubbish. The hiss, the audience noise, the picture quality…. But when I watched it I knew I had to include it for three reasons.

First, this is a Northumbrian choir performing in Northumberland, and that’s home, and Christmas is in some part about returning home or finding a sense of home. Secondly, I am hard of hearing and am constantly reminded that you can interpret music completely differently to most people when one of your key senses is impaired. It’s great to include a performance in this series which is signed for the deaf. Finally, it’s a reminder of the incredible ability of music to bring people together. Here is a community choir, performing in it’s local community, singing a German carol in English, and by signing the performance they are making the effort to include people who might otherwise have been excluded from the performance.

For good measure, here’s the Vienna Boy’s Choir performing Stile Nacht in a recording from 1967. Close your eyes and enjoy: