Composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad (Music 1998) has been commissioned to write for this year’s A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. 

The service was introduced in 1918 and first broadcast in 1928. It is now broadcast to millions of people annually. A new work has been commissioned for the service every year since 1983. Cheryl joins a diverse and varied group of composers and follows on from Caius’ Precentor and Director of College Music Matthew Martin whose setting of Angelus ad Virginem was commissioned for the 2022 service. 

Cheryl is a professional composer with an MPhil in Musical Composition. She was supervised by Professor Robin Holloway at Caius. 

Cheryl says: “I was absolutely delighted when Daniel Hyde asked me to write a carol for this year's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. I have looked forward to finding out who wrote the new carol every year since I was a little girl, and always dreamed that one day it would be me!”

Cheryl has written The Cradle, a setting of an English translation by Robert Graves of an anonymous seventeenth-century Austrian text.

She says: "I wanted to set myself the challenge of writing a gentle carol, and it took many attempts to come up with something that I hope is catchy yet not clichéd, and heartfelt yet not syrupy. The vivid imagery of this anonymous seventeenth century Austrian text in an English translation by Robert Graves was a joy to set, and I hope my music conveys both the intimacy and the glory of the poem.” 

Daniel Hyde, the Director of Music at King’s College says: "Cheryl’s carol is a masterpiece in understatement, hauntingly beautiful and so carefully written for the current generation of King’s College Choir. We greatly look forward to singing The Cradle on Christmas Eve.”

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will be broadcast at 3pm on BBC Radio 4 on December 24.