Viewers have complained to the BBC after its festive service Carols From King’s failed to feature a single non-white chorister.
None of the 13 singers on the programme, which aired on BBC2 on Christmas Eve, appeared to be from an ethnic minority.
The choir is made up of 16 boy choristers selected by their school, King s College, and 14 undergraduates studying at Cambridge University.
One viewer told The Mail on Sunday: All the young choristers were white. I’ve got mixed-race grandchildren and I was appalled. I can’t believe that the King’s College School doesn’t have any black pupils who can sing.
December 28, 2020 Sixteen boys make up the treble voices of the Choir of King s College, Cambridge, which sings in the annual A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Kevin Leighton
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By Colleen Phelps
Christmas Eve at King s College, Cambridge, usually follows the same routine. There s a morning sound check, a lunch break, and then once the choirs are lined up to start, a red signal light flashes. One boy steps forward, unaccompanied, singing the perennial opening tune, Once in Royal David s City.
For many listeners, this is the moment Christmas begins. And while the audience will still hear all the same readings and carols as scheduled, the service released this year will be not be live. While the people at King s had planned as recently as the week before Christmas to broadcast live as usual, albeit without a congregation, they also prerecorded elements of the service through
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The King’s College choir in Cambridge preparing to record the Christmas carol service with no congregation for TV
Credit: Geoff Robinson Photography
Glad tidings! Some shared traditions are surviving in the December darkness of this Covid Christmas. As it has been since 1928,
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, will be a reassuring presence after an upside-down year at 3pm today (Christmas Eve) on BBC Radio 4, while following over on BBC 2 at 5.30pm
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King s College Choir rehearsing in the Chapel in 2016 (Image: Cambridgeshire Live)
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King s College is famous for its choral services. (Image: PA)
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