Here is an extraordinary men’s choir singing two extraordinarily beautiful Ave Marias. The first two videos feature Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria: the Chanticleer album recording followed by a rougher video recording of the group performing it live. The third is Ave Maria…Virgo Serena by Josquin des Prez. If you do not know these, prepare to return to them again and again!
Here is an Advent calendar from the Iona Community in Scotland that seems to capture the spiritual essence of Advent’s themes and beauty:
http://iona.org.uk/advent-calendar-2015/
Savor and enjoy!
Here are two additions to our Advent music collection, both from the album Light of the Stable by Emmylou Harris. The first is a fun seasonal song from the remastered and expanded release of the album, the second a beautiful contemporary carol from the original version. The album is more for Christmas than Advent, with many carols that Emmylou blesses with her gifts of arrangement and voice.
We developed a script for our Sunday School for the ritual of lighting Advent candles at home. To do this yourself, you will need five candles. You could have them in a special Advent wreath or standing alone. Traditionally three candles are purple, one is pink and one is white, as you will see in the script and photos below, but you can use all the same color, too.
Here is the link to a downloadable pdf of the script: Advent Candle Lighting at Home
And here are two images of Advent Candles:
Advent has its own tradition of music apart from Christmas. One of the classic Advent hymns is Wake, Awake for Night Is Flying. Below are two versions of a famous cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach based on that hymn for you to enjoy. A translation of the text is available here.
If you enjoy Bach, here are some beautiful cantatas he wrote for the season. You can find translations of the texts by clicking here.