Listen now to 'A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols'

YourClassical MPR’s live broadcast of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge, with host Michael Barone, has ended. But you can relive this glorious event through on-demand audio, which is available now using the player above for 30 days after broadcast. Don’t forget to download the Order of Service for this year’s program.

Since 1918, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has offered listeners an opportunity to share in a live, worldwide Christmas Eve broadcast of a service of biblical readings, carols and related seasonal classical music. This special event is presented by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, one of the world’s foremost choirs of men and boys, and performed in an acoustically and architecturally renowned venue, the college’s 500-year-old chapel.

This year's national broadcast of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is made possible by generous support from the Hognander Family Foundation.

Program

Here is the Order of Service for this year’s program, including this PDF booklet.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols 2025 - Order of Service

Order of Service

• Processional: “Once in Royal David's City”

• Bidding Prayer (read by the dean)

• “The Blessed Son of God” (Ralph Vaughan Williams)

• First lesson: Genesis 3, vv. 8-15, 17-19 (read by a chorister)

• “Adam Lay Ybounden” (Boris Ord)

• Second lesson: Genesis 22, vv. 15-18 (read by a college student)

• “Nowell Sing We Now All and Some” (Elizabeth Maconchy)

• Third lesson: Isaiah 9, vv. 2, 6-7 (read by a member of college staff)

• “Sussex Carol” (arr. Philip Ledger)

• “Noel” (adapt. Arthur Sullivan/arr. John Scott)

• Fourth lesson: Isaiah 11, vv. 1-4a, 6-9 (read by a representative of Eton College)

• “The Darkling Thrush” (Rachel Portman) - 2025 commission *

• “The Lamb” (John Tavener)

• Fifth lesson: Luke 1, vv. 26-35, 38 (read by a Fellow)

• “Ave Maria” (Bruckner)

• “There Is No Rose of Such Virtue” (arr. John Stevens)

• Sixth lesson: Luke 2, vv. 1-7 (read by the mayor of Cambridge)

• “A Boy Was Born” (Benjamin Britten)

• “Unto Us Is Born a Son” from Piæ Cantiones (Arr. David Willcocks)

• Seventh lesson: Luke 2, vv. 8-16 (read by the director of music)

• “Nativity Carol” (John Rutter)

• “The Shepherds’ Farewell” from L’Enfance du Christ, Op. 25 (Hector Berlioz)

• Eighth lesson: Matthew 2, vv. 1-12 (read by the vice-provost)

• “Dormi Jesu” (John Rutter)

• “I Saw Three Ships” (arr. Stuart Nicholson)

• Ninth lesson: John 1, vv. 1-14 (read by the provost)

• “O Come, All Ye Faithful” (arr. Willcocks/Daniel Hyde)

• Blessing

• “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” (Felix Mendelssohn, arr. Willcocks)

Organ voluntaries

• In Dulci Jubilo BWV 729 (Johann Sebastian Bach)

• IX. Dieu parmi nous from La Nativité du Seigneur (Olivier Messiaen)

Credits

• Rev. Stephen Cherry, dean

• Daniel Hyde, director of music

• Rev. Jonathan Kimber, chaplain

• Emily Lyons, chapel manager

• Harrison Cole, assisting organist

* A new work has been commissioned for the Christmas Eve service every year since 1983, and this year Rachel Portman has set a poem by Thomas Hardy, an English novelist and poet who attended King’s College London in the 1860s — “The Darkling Thrush.” The composer says: “I was particularly drawn to [the poem’s] deep rural setting, beginning as it does in the cold winter landscape, and the uplifting song of the little bird that bursts out upon the stillness bringing hope. The thrush’s song in the poem is given to a solo chorister, and the choir responds in growing warmth and melody. The poignancy of a frail thrush’s song as the bringer of hope into the world is, I feel, a good message for our time.”

Programming is also supported by Alight and CF Design.