BBC Radio 3 launches its Christmas Carol Competition

Composing opportunity returns for a second year - now's your chance!

Published: August 25, 2015 at 7:19 am

BBC Radio 3 is calling for all budding composers to take part in their second annual carol competition. Amateur composers are invited to submit a four-minute composition to the BBC Radio 3 Breakfast Carol Competition 2015. Poet, broadcaster and author Roger McGough has penned this year’s poem, which should be set for SATB choir, with or without a piano accompaniment.

Six carols will be shortlisted by a panel including David Hill, who will conduct the BBC Singers in the final, Griselda Sherlaw-Johnson of Oxford University Press, and Master of the Queen’s Music and associate composer of the BBC Singers Judith Weir.

In the run up to Christmas, the six carols to make the shortlist will be performed live on Radio 3’s Breakfast show, giving the opportunity for listeners to download and vote for their favourites on the Radio 3 website. The winning carol will be performed live on Radio 3’s Breakfast on Tuesday 23 December, and played throughout Christmas Day on Radio 3.

The deadline for entries is 3 November 2015. For more information, and to listen to last year’s finalists, visit the BBC Radio 3 website.

Comes the Light

by Roger McGough

Follow the star’s beckoning light

Break the silence of the night

Gently open the cattle-shed door

See the baby lying in straw

Sing out for the mother and the child she bore

Sing out for the mother and the child she bore.

Sing out for the earth, its health and renewal

Its wealth universal, equally shared

Through winter’s darkness, bleak and cruel

Comes the light, sing out and be heard.

Sing out...

For those with faith and those without

For those who hope and those who doubt

For those who mock, lay waste and fight

For those who would put out the light

Sing out...

Follow the shepherds’ marvelling gaze

Echo their wonder, join in their praise

Annus mirabilis, who can ignore

A miracle like this with love at its core

Sing out for the mother and the child she bore

Sing out for the mother and the child she bore.

Sing out for the earth, its health and renewal

For the birth of our saviour, the Jesus boy

Through winter’s darkness, bleak and cruel

Comes the light, sing out for joy.

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