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Watch Live Tonight: W&L's Annual Christmas Candlelight Service

Washington and Lee University’s annual Christmas Candlelight Service featuring the W&L University Singers will be held Thursday, Dec. 6, at 8 p.m. in Lee Chapel. Seating will begin at 7:15 p.m. The public is invited to the presentation, which is free.

The “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols,” broadcast each year from King’s College Chapel, University of Cambridge, and widely used in England, the United States and around the world, is an ancient form for corporate worship at the Christmas season. The prayers, lessons and music tell the story of sacred history from the Creation to the Incarnation.


• Watch live at 8 p.m. Thursday


In 1880, E.W. Benson, later the Archbishop of Canterbury, drew up a service of lessons and carols for use on Christmas Eve in the wooden shed which served as his cathedral. In 1918 this service was adapted for use in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. In the early 1930s, the BBC began broadcasting the service on overseas programming, and it is estimated that there are millions of listeners worldwide.

The service has been held for many years in Lexington, the earlier years at Robert E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church. The W&L Men’s Glee Club participated in the service held at the Episcopal Church, but when the Candlelight Service moved to Lee Chapel in the early 1990s, the newly founded W&L Chamber Singers became the featured choir.

Music for the traditional service again will be provided by the University Singers, the evolution of the Chamber Singers, conducted by Shane M. Lynch, director of choral activities at W&L. The singers’s anthems will feature a wide variety of music, from Malcolm Sargent’s wonderful version of Silent Night and Kenneth Jennings’ classic arrangement of Thy Little Ones, Dear Lord to modern and beautiful Christmas masterpieces like Morten Laursidsen’s O Magnum Mysterium and Healey Willan’s The Three Kings.

Timothy Gaylard, professor of music, will be the organist for the service, leading the familiar hymns and carols and rounding out the evening’s experience with a festive organ prelude and postlude.

Nine members of the Washington and Lee University community are chosen to read the lessons.  William C. Datz, former coordinator of Religious Life at W&L and current Catholic Campus Minister, will preside over the service.

News Contact:
Julie Cline
News Writer
jcline@wlu.edu
540-458-8954