NICK PEPIN AND JUNE CLARK: Let Us Light A Candle

Nick Pepin and June Clark

Let Us Light A Candle

© 2005 Charlemagne Music

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A wonderful selection of traditional and entirely new carols and arrangements by June Clark, sung by Nick Pepin, from Handel's 'Messiah' to Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas' with all stages in bewteen.

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Let us light a candle ‘ A Christmas Celebration’ CM22102

This brand new CD was recorded in 2005. The title is from a carol on the disc composed by June ‘Let us light a candle to the Christ Child’. The music is arranged in five sections covering the Christmas Story and the Celebrations. It contains a wonderful selection of traditional and entirely new carols and arrangements by June Clark. From the well known Basque melody of ‘Away in a manger’ dressed in a new garb, two favourite American folk songs, through completely new conceptions of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Ding Dong merrily on high’, the standard repertoire of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Messiah, to Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’, this CD is as varied as it can be with something for everyone. There are even versions of ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ (with glockenspiel played by Nick) and ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ disguised as a Viennese style waltz, and to end a boldly fantastic ‘Caribbean Sleigh Ride’ (Jingle Bells) with all the trimmings. There are also three lovely piano solos, a Christmas Day Bach Chorale arrangement, John Ireland’s ‘Holy Boy’, and Mendelssohn’s ‘Christmas Piece’. This will make an excellent Christmas present for all tastes!

NICK PEPIN has held Lay Clerk positions as countertenor in many British cathedrals including Durham, Portsmouth, and most recently Winchester, where he sang on numerous recordings, including a disk of Gibbons verse anthems with Hyperion. He has toured extensively with the Winchester choir to the U.S., and throughout Europe. He sings regularly as a soloist in oratorio, especially Bach and Handel, having appeared with the London Festival Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, the Parley of Instruments, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and the Bach Choir. He is a member of the early music group Polyhymnia, specialising in Spanish renaissance repertoire. Nick has given many recitals, accompanied by his mother, June, in Europe and the USA, and performs regularly in lunchtime recitals. In 2003/2004 Nick lived in Washington D.C during which time he became a founder member of the upper- voice Countertop Quartet (www.countertopquartet.org) which has delighted audiences with its unique sound.

JUNE CLARK, after studying at the Royal Academy of Music, worked as a composer with Alan Bush, subsequently publishing works in London and the USA. As a pianist she studied with Cyril Smith making her debut with Joan Ryall as a piano duo during the 1958 Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. An international career and regular broadcasting with the BBC followed, with appearances at major festivals, Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room. In 1967 the duo won First Prize in the International Competition for Interpreters of Contemporary Music in Utrecht. After the death in 1990 of Joan, June revived an earlier career as accompanist and composer. In 1995 she founded, together with her son Nick, Pennine Parnassus in Alston. In 2004 together with Nick and her second son, Tom, they began Charlemagne Music, a company producing their own CDs and June’s many published compositions.
June is married to the writer David Pepin, and lives in the North Pennines in UK.
(www.charlemagnemusic.co.uk)

‘This is an attractive Christmas disc… a pleasant, excellently performed compilation of the familiar in slightly unfamiliar guise and recommendable as such. Nick Pepin sings them all with notable poise’
Music Web International

‘The variety of repertoire was a real joy

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