The Christmas Rose

Patrick Ball's holiday recording, The Christmas Rose, is a celebration of Christmas, with Celtic style and tradition. This assortment of favorite seasonal classics performed on the wire-strung Celtic harp reverberates with a crystalline, bell-like sound that recalls the crisp beauty of newly fallen snow glistening on a Christmas morning.

Ball performs his own festive arrangements on Celtic harp, occasionally joined by Irish penny whistles and the Irish uilleann bagpipes. The selections include God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, The First Noel, and Auld Lang Syne. His delicate, deeply resonant renditions of What Child Is This? and Silent Night call forth the blessed stillness of that first Christmas eve, while his performances of less familiar carols like the fourteenth century French tune, Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella and the German canon, Give Us Peace, add to the sense of freshness and discovery in this sixteen piece collection.

"The story of Christmas is one of joy and hope," says Ball, "Joy that a Savior is born, and hope that His coming will bring us peace. It seems fitting then, that the Celtic harp should play the music of Christmas, for this legendary, brass-strung instrument has brought joy and hope to the Irish people for over a thousand years."