Experience the warmth and joy of Christmas with a concert devoted to the best traditional carols ever written. Join in the singing with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Youth Chorus. With a selection of festive favourites, the evening is the perfect way to start the Christmas holiday in the company of family and friends, and a good-old, sing-along.

EPSG:4326

Celebration of Christmas Carols Traditional Christmas sing-along

Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts

The UK’s most popular classical music station returns to the Royal Albert Hall for a 25th anniversary musical extravaganza – Classic FM Live at 25!

Classic FM Live with Viking

Royal Albert Hall

Formed in 1970 in Birmingham UK, the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) is a band that fuses pop music with classical overtones. Jeff Lynne, its creator and continuing driving force added violins, cellos, string basses, horns and woodwind to the standard rock line-up to “pick up where the Beatles left off…” In the 13 years following their arrival on the music scene, they sold over 50 millions records worldwide, accumulated 27 Top 40 songs in the UK singles chart, and 15 in the US charts. In the summer of 2016, they played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, and in December, it was announced they had been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2017 Jeff Lynne continues to front ELO (Jeff Lynne’s ELO).

It’s a Living Thing The music of Jeff Lynne's ELO

Mayflower Theatre

In 1929 the BBC asked Walton to write an oratorio for small chorus, small orchestra and a vocal soloist.  The result was anything but small!  Belshazzar’s Feast, to a libretto by Osbert Sitwell, turned out to be on an epic scale.  It rejuvenated English oratorio writing, and audiences were surprised with a jazzy, perhaps slightly racy, shocker. Bernstein revisited the score of his wildy successful musical and extracted nine sections to assemble into what he called the Symphonic Dances. The famous opening confrontation of the Jets and the Sharks is followed by the strains of Somewhere and the lively Latin dances of the Mambo and Cha-cha before the Cool fugue slides into the final, deadly Rumble, before ending on a haunting, unresolved chord.

Belshazzar’s Feast

Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts 

Awakening is a spiritual choral work based at Stonehenge near Salisbury. Setting 16 spiritual poems by Stephen Feltham,  Awakening portrays the cycle of hope experienced by humanity as it progresses through the celestial cycle exhibited by the equinoxes and solstices. The work is in four main sections: Spring Equinox; Summer Solstice; Autumn Equinox; Winter Solstice.

Awakening

Salisbury Cathedral

Despite its popularity, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto remains refreshingly original with its exciting and altogether exceptional opening and richly forged musical dramas of powerful virtuosity and of uncommon sensitivity. Karabits’ concerto, subtitled Lamentations, takes inspiration from two tragedies that befell Ukraine in the 20th century – the Stalin policy induced famine of 1932-33 and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. Eclectically scored with theatrical gestures, it is modern orchestral music rooted in tradition. In the predominantly meditative Styx, the viola acts as an intermediary between the lands of the living and the dead. It is also the go-between for the orchestra and the chorus, which sings a patchwork text made up of the names of churches, and the titles of folksongs and lullabies from the composer’s native Georgia. Originally composed for solo piano, Balakirev’s virtuosic Islamey is an oriental fantasy inspired by melodies from the Caucasus Mountains.

Bournemouth Symphony Chorus

Dec 23, 2025

Celebration of Christmas Carols Traditional Christmas sing-along

Oct 20, 2025

Classic FM Live with Viking

Bournemouth Symphony Chorus