The Wexford Carol

St. Andrew's Church in Winter
photo by Parrish Nored

I have posted this rendition of The Wexford Carol before. It is one of my all-time favorite Christmas carols. I am presenting it again here because I heard it performed by the Birmingham-Southern Choir at Canterbury United Methodist Church in Mountain Brook last Friday under the direction of Dr. Lester Seigel. It was one of several superb arrangements in their Festival of Lessons and Carols. 

My first encounter with the carol was in the mid 1980s when I was singing in the choir at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Birmingham. We were then under the direction of a young Lester Seigel, a most superb organist and choirmaster who was also choir director at Temple Emanu-El at the time (his weekends must have been quite busy!). These days, Dr. Seigel is an internationally known conductor and is Department Chair for the Music Department at Birmingham-Southern College. I am proud to have known him back in the day.

While I do not have a recording of the Birmingham-Southern Choir to present here, I have John Rutter’s arrangement and recording of the carol. 

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