A Festival of Carols (score)

“A Festival of Carols for mixed chorus and harp is based on five Christmas carol texts by 19^th century American poets and hymn writers.  Although it was my intention to use earlier American texts, I found that most Christmas carols sung in America prior to the 19^th century were carols brought to this country by immigrants from their homelands in Europe…In the present work all of the music is new whether or not the texts are familiar.  Thus, the carols herein are not arrangements of previously existing tunes but entirely new melodies and harmonizations with the harp used both as an accompanying instrument and as an intrinsic thread within the larger musical fabric…”  Frank Ferko December 2002