With Christmas just three weeks away this performance of Sleigh Ride by the VOCES8 Foundation orchestra conducted by Barnaby Smith is exactly what is needed. This work features on an upcoming album 'A Choral Christmas' (DECCA) alongside a mix of classic carols and new works by contemporary composers.

Ironically Sleigh Ride was written by Leroy Anderson during a heatwave in the summer of 1946. It was then first performed in 1948 and subsequently recorded in the following year. Its initial popularity lead to Mitchell Parish writing the well-known lyrics which opened it into the world of the jazz standard and has since been recorded by many artists over the years with covers by The Ronettes in 1963 and Gwen Stefani in 2020 to name but a few. The original orchestral version here is particularly innovative in its orchestration - bells for the sleigh bells, wooden blocks for the horse shoes, two wooden planks slapped together to imitate a whip crack and even a trumpet as a whinnying horse!

You can hear more from VOCES8 Foundation Orchestra from their most recent album 'A Choral Christmas' below via Apple Music.