"Hello, dearest reader. My name is Léna and I am a third-year tenor scholar with the Choir of Royal Holloway that had the absolute pleasure of singing in and recording the Choir’s latest album release, “Seeing The Star: Music for Christmas” by Ben Ponniah.

Ponniah’s music is somewhat of a departure for myself in terms of the music I have recorded with the choir thus far (my first album being Clive Osgood’s ‘Stabat Mater’, which we recorded just 5 days after I joined the choir!); he places great focus on close, jazz-adjacent harmony and cited his synaesthesia (he experiences and associates certain musical timbres and keys with different colours) as a source of inspiration for a lot of the pieces with more involved harmony when discussing the works with us in rehearsal. As someone with a similar case of synaesthesia, this was a fascinating album to record from that perspective and I enjoyed engaging with this extra layer of harmonic intent during the recording.

We recorded this album in January 2026 in The Church of St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood. Christmas having recently come and gone, singing Ponniah’s music was welcome as a kind of fond farewell to the holiday season (especially when coupled with everyone’s thick coats and scarves while we were in front of the microphones!) We have all been hotly anticipating the album’s release, and in particular I have loved listening to Emily’s Carol, where Ponniah’s keen ear for harmony is at its most evident in my opinion. From a singer’s perspective, I also found Rejoice in the Light a joy to perform as a piece that stands in stylistic contrast to the rest of the album; the quietly tense and driving rhythms were fun to work on in rehearsal and the growth throughout the piece pays off very satisfyingly with its climax.

You can listen to “Seeing The Star: Music for Christmas by Ben Ponniah” on streaming services now! I hope you enjoy listening around the Christmas tree in a few months time." - Léna Gore, Tenor Choral Scholar (3rd Year).