Archive

Christmas Fantasy

20 May 2026

SATB and piano or brass quintet, percussion and organ
Duration: 10 minutes | Difficulty: Easy – Moderately Difficult

Purchase
View Score
Listen

This sparkling work draws together four well-known carols reflecting the joys of being together with friends and loved ones to celebrate the festive season, with hopes for brighter times ahead. Higgins’s lively arrangement of Deck the hall begins with a virtuosic instrumental introduction and features a soprano descant on the final verse. Next, Carol of the Bells employs the glockenspiel in the famous repeating four-note motif, with Higgins bringing a fresh take to this notable melody through new words and an imaginative use of the choir to portray the chiming bells. O Christmas tree, is warm and gentle, with a new text and the opportunity for a charismatic solo verse over a rich cushion of harmonies. The final movement, Here we come a-wassailing, is full of merriment, and, reflecting its composition during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, contains a subtle nod at the close towards the chaos of trying to sing ‘together’ online.

We three kings of Orient are

20 October 2023

SATB and piano (with optional percussion)
Duration: 3.5 minutes | Difficulty: Easy

Purchase
View Score
Listen

In this fun, rhythmic arrangement of the classic Christmas carol, Michael Higgins retains the traditional melodic line in the vocal parts, while the use of syncopation and harmonic twists in the piano accompaniment creates an unsteady, off-kilter feel reminiscent of a camel’s gait. With optional percussion adding a contrasting steady pulse, this is a captivating reimagining of the much-loved carol.

Fauré Requiem

19 September 2023

S, Bar solo, SATB, string quintet and organ

Purchase
View Score

This new arrangement for string quintet and organ was first performed on Remembrance Sunday in 2007 in the intimate setting of the choir stalls at St John’s Church, Wimbledon. By using a small number of singers, similar to the twenty or so in Fauré’s choir at the Madeleine, added to the chamber music quality of the strings, unique colours and textures are created which breathe new life into an otherwise familiar but continually evolving work.