I’m delighted to be singing in the Dutch Veterans’ Institute during their annual Christmas concert. Together with the Band of Liberation and Pipes and conductor Simon Dubbelaar, I’ll present a programme with moments for reflection and remembrance as well as festive cheer. It’s a closed event: if you are a Dutch veteran then do get in touch with the Veteranen Instituut if you are interested in attending.

I’m thrilled to be the guest soloist at Leiden’s festive tattoo. With many guest orchestras and entertainers, the programme will given even the grumpiest of Scrooge’s some Christmas cheer! 

Tickets are available via this link. 

The second Sunday in December is worldwide candle-lighting day, a chance for people to light candles for children who have died. 

The grief of miscarriage, still birth, and of losing a child is not as well-acknowledged as one might hope. In my home town, people are invited to come together for a non-religious ceremony in which there is the chance to light a candle for the deceased and to speak his or her name. 

I will be singing during the ceremony. It is the tenth year the ceremony has been held, and I’ve sung almost every year from the start. It is one of the hardest ceremonies to sing, even whilst knowing that the babies and children live on in the broken hearts of those who are present. 

For more information, please visit this page.

On 1st December, Emma will join the Leiden Toonkunstorkest and conductor Jeppe Moulijn to perform Willam Walton’s settings of Edith Sitwell’s poems, ‘Façade.’ The poems, which are spoken, not sung, have catchy rhythms and word play around assonance and dissonance.

The work was conceived as a tongue-in-cheek answer to Schönberg’s ‘Pierrot Lunaire.’ The poems have been compared to Edward Lear’s ‘Nonsense Verses.’ Walton’s music, composed when he was living with Sitwell, sets down the rhythm for the spoken text and provides musical accompaniment to them. Sometimes there are well-known melodies quoted alongside the text, such as ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.’ At other moments, the music has a dance form, such as tango, waltz, or tarantella. There are also references to hornpipe music and Alpine music.

Practicing the poems at home has been tremendous fun, since our toddler seems to enjoy trying to dance to the rhythms of the texts, even without the orchestral accompaniment. If you are able to attend the performance, I hope it brings you the same feeling of joy!

For tickets, please use this link.