Three Christmas Miniatures

About

These short pieces were prompted by requests from a couple of community choirs for easy SSA Christmas pieces for a competition. Realising that I had few suitable pieces, and that in fact there was little such music by NZ composers, I wrote this cycle. I tried to avoid texts with overtly northern hemisphere references such as snow and holly, although the second piece alludes to the food associated with English Christmases. The first piece sets a text by Elizabeth Fleming which tells of that first Christmas and some of the sights and sounds around it. The second text, by Elizabeth Gould, details the making of Christmas mincemeat. The final text, by Jane Yolen, tells of the trek of the wise men, but from the viewpoint of the camels. Musically the works are in simple tonal style, often suggesting folk music.