A Festival of Lessons and Carols
A beloved traditional service for Christmas
Sunday, December 20, 2026, 5:00 pm
Celebrate Christmas with the St. James Festival Choir in a beloved traditional service weaving festive carols and scripture readings into a joyful tapestry of music and story. Come share a joyful service of scripture, congregational carols, and festive choral music in the days before Christmas. The service unfolds through a sequence of biblical lessons tracing the story of salvation from humanity's fall and the promises of the prophets to the mystery of the Incarnation. Each reading is answered by music, creating a dialogue between scripture and song. Familiar hymns invite the congregation to take an active part, while anthems sung by the Festival Choir add contrast, reflection, and festive brilliance. The accumulating pattern gives the liturgy its unmistakable shape, moving steadily toward the proclamation of the Word made flesh. Lessons and Carols belongs equally to the worship life of the church and to the musical life of the wider community. It offers longtime parishioners a treasured annual observance, but it also welcomes first-time visitors, families, and listeners who may know the season chiefly through its music. In the resonant acoustic of St. James by-the-Sea, congregational singing and choral sound fill the church with warmth and immediacy. The result is not simply a concert of Christmas favorites, but a shared telling of the Christmas story through word, silence, and music. Admission is free, no ticket is required, and all are welcome to join the service in the final days before Christmas. The Festival Choir brings together the regular musical life of St. James with additional singers for one of the parish's largest choral observances of the year. Its role is both narrative and liturgical: the choir responds to the readings, illuminates their imagery, and helps shape the emotional progression from ancient promise to Christmas joy. The organ adds breadth, color, and festive energy, while moments of unaccompanied singing preserve space for intimacy and wonder.
About the Artist
The St. James Festival Choir brings together the Choir and Schola Cantorum of St. James by-the-Sea with accomplished guest singers from throughout the San Diego region. Formed for services and concerts requiring expanded choral forces, the ensemble performs major works from the sacred choral tradition within the resonant acoustic of St. James by-the-Sea.
The Festival Choir reflects St. James’s longstanding commitment to choral music of the highest caliber. Its repertoire ranges from Renaissance polyphony and the great works of the Anglican tradition to large-scale compositions of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Under the direction of Alex Benestelli, the choir combines the musical discipline of a professional ensemble with the breadth and warmth of a larger choral body, offering performances shaped by textual clarity, stylistic understanding, and the expressive power of voices gathered in community.