St. Luke's UMC Will Present the World Premiere Of Christmas Cantata By Composer Howard Goodall

St. Luke's United Methodist Church (St. Luke's UMC) welcomes award-winning and world-renowned British composer Howard Goodall again this year as he conducts the world premiere of his Christmas Cantata. This seven-movement work was specially created by the composer for the choirs of St. Luke's UMC as part of the church's 2019 Christmas Festival. This piece is written for soprano solo, children's choir, SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) choir, organ, and chamber orchestra and will be performed in its entirety throughout each of the three services in the sanctuary on December 15. The Christmas Festival is made possible by the generosity of St. Luke's Friends of Music.

Howard Goodall is one of Britain's best-known composers of choral music, stage musicals, TV and film scores. He is also a distinguished music historian and broadcaster. His choral music has been commissioned to mark many national ceremonies and memorials; his settings of Psalm 23 and Love Divine are among the most performed of all sacred music, featured on several platinum-selling CDs. Eternal Light: A Requiem has had more than 550 live performances throughout the world since its première in 2008 and won him a Classical BRIT Award for Composer of the Year. His 2009 Enchanted Voices, a setting of the Beatitudes, won a Gramophone award.

Goodall's first West End musical, The Hired Man, opened in 1984 and has since been performed all over the world, winning many international awards. Other West End musicals include Girlfriends, The Kissing-Dance, the dreaming, Love Story and Bend it Like Beckham, which is touring India, the United States and Canada in 2019-20. He has composed some of the best-known British TV theme tunes of the last 40 years. The animated Mr. Bean series is the world's most-followed entertainment product, with more than 80 million Facebook followers and 10 million YouTube subscribers. He won a Primetime Emmy in 2011 for Original Dramatic Score for the HBO film Into the Storm.

WHEN: Sunday, Dec. 15 at the following services: 8:30 a.m., 9:45 a.m., 11 a.m.

WHERE: St. Luke's United Methodist Church, 3471 Westheimer Rd, Houston, 77027; In the Main Sanctuary

TARIFF: Free and open to the public