WORCESTER Cathedral Chamber Choir is enjoying global exposure thanks to a festive CD that is creating a stir in the classical music world.

Hodie, Advent to Christmas Day has earned praise from some of the nation’s leading music writers, while Classic FM magazine is due to feature one of its tracks on its Christmas issue CD.

The album, which is the Worcester choir’s first foray in releasing a global record, is now being sold online, in Tesco, Asda and HMV stores.

Musical director Stephen Shellard said: “It is good to have all the hard work rewarded with enthusiastic comeback.

“The recording has turned out very well and is a good calling card for the chamber choir. The new organ comes over beautifully and it has been an honour to premiere its outing in the choral recording world."

The CD, produced by Wolverhampton-based Regent Records, features Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols and Ralph Vaughan-Williams’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols, as well as the first recordings of two carols by contemporary Bristol composer Steven Kings.

A critic from Gramophone Magazine said the “balance of ingredients was well judged to make me think of Christmas pudding”.

“It is difficult to know what to record as the market is over flowing with recordings of this nature,” said Mr Shellard, who founded the mixed choir in 1998.

“In some ways it’s pot luck but I think the tracks are a good mix of the familiar and less familiar and are a good overview of the CD’s overall theme of Advent to Christmas Day.

“The main cathedral choir of boys and men has been recording since the 1960s and is well-known in England and across the world, so it is good that the cathedral’s newest choir is now entering the performance arena with its own individual sound of men and women.”