A WONDERFUL evening of festive music will be available in Okehampton next week thanks to a special collaboration between All Saints Church and West Devon?s folk and arts organisation the Wren Trust. The historic St James Chapel will be the venue for Carols at St James, on Tuesday December 20. The evening will provide a mixture of Christmas songs and stories in the folk tradition, when Wren Music?s professional team of folk musicians, singers and bards will be joined by local people keen to share and pass on their own songs and stories, including the young singers from Oke Youth Chorus. The theme of the event will be Peace on Earth, bringing together groups from across the community. The guest choir on the night will be from All Saints Church, directed by Ian Cann and the evening will end with a recessional procession and a musical guard of honour. The programme for the evening will include familiar and well-loved favourites, along with new arrangements in the distinctive Devon folk style, such as Silent Night, sung in English and German. A spokesman for Wren said: ?The Devon traditional folk style is typified by three-part vocal harmonies ? the middle voice carries the melody, whilst the higher and lower voices provide decoration and variation around the tune.? Also in the programme will be ?Let Christians All Awake? ? one of a series of carols sung until the early 1960s in the Kilkhampton area, on the West Devon border. The Wren spokesman said: ?In the late 1990s, a 30-year-old tape recording of the carols was given by Barbara Cubbin, of Bratton Clovelly, to Wren Music. ?The tape was of a local band of men singing in unaccompanied harmony. This proved to be the starting point for a new extremely vigorous life for these carols. ?Although the origin of the carols is unknown, they are thought to have been written in the eighteenth century.? The carols feature on a CD produced by Wren and have been heard on TV, radio and in local services and events. Carols at St James, one of only eight mayoral chapels in the country, starts at 7pm ? all are welcome.
