The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is searching for four choirs from the Midlands area to be part of an event to mark the Twelfth Night of Christmas on Saturday 6 January 2018.
Coinciding with the RSC’s forthcoming production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the Company is holding a Wassail in Stratford-upon-Avon. Roughly translated as ‘be in good health’, wassailing is an English tradition taking place on the Twelfth Night of Christmas, which involves singing the health of apple trees in the hope that they might yield a good harvest.
Choirs of any size, whose members should be aged 18 or over, will be provided with the music for six wassailing songs in advance for them to learn for the big day. The songs will be arranged by Paul Sartin, founding member of award-winning folk ensembles such as Belshazzar’s Feast, Faustus and Bellowhead.
On the day of the Wassail itself, the choirs will need to spend a full day in Stratford, arriving for rehearsals at 11am and singing between 2-5pm. The choirs will perform in outdoor locations near the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, including Shakespeare’s New Place.
Louisa Davies from the RSC Events and Exhibition team said, “Given that we are performing Shakespeare’s great comedy, Twelfth Night, over the festive period, it felt the perfect moment to stage the RSC’s first wassail. We are looking for choirs from within a 25 mile radius of Stratford to get involved, learn new arrangements of some rousing wassailing songs, and sing their hearts out here at this very special time of year.”
