Yet more Christmas-themed classical programming to report -- this time, three wide-ranging choral concerts in the week preceding the Big Day.

This weekend, the Ensemble Laude Choral Society, a women's chorus with about 35 members, specializing in medieval repertoire, will offer a characteristically eclectic holiday program, titled

SOLstice.

(Sunday, 3 p.m.; the Quarterdeck, Royal Roads University, 2005 Sooke Rd., Colwood; admission by donation; silent auction at intermission.)

Formerly operating through the Victoria Conservatory of Music, Laude became an independent, non-profit ensemble this year, though it is still directed by its founder, the soprano and early-music specialist Elizabeth MacIsaac.

Sunday's concert, scheduled for mid-afternoon so it can usher in the setting of the sun, celebrates not only Christmas but the winter solstice, which will occur here the following morning.

Laude's program will include an 11th-century carol dealing with the Annunciation; motets relating the story of the original St. Nicholas and the three virgins (not as kinky as it sounds -- look it up); two 15th-century rondeaux by Guillaume Dufay; thematically appropriate modern choruses; and some pieces that MacIsaac compares to amuse-bouches between courses (a spiritual, a Samoan lullaby).

The choir will be joined by four performers playing off-the-beaten-track instruments: Douglas Hensley on santur (a Persian dulcimer) and gittern (a medieval lute); Marilyn Rummel on various harps; Molly Janz on rebec and fiddle (both ancestors of the violin); and Ian Bullen on sinfonye, which, according to Laude's manager, Elizabeth Courtney, is "like a hurdy-gurdy without the monkey."

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For the past few years, choral conductor Peter Butterfield has given a very popular Christmas concert with his choir VancouverVoices. This year, as the recently appointed music director of the Victoria Philharmonic Choir, he is exporting his tradition across the strait, as the choir's Family Christmas Carol Sing-Along Concert.

(Tuesday, 7 p.m.; Church of St. John the Divine, 1611 Quadra St.; adults $20, students $15, children 12 and under free when accompanied by an adult; in advance at Ivy's Book Shop, Cadboro Bay Books, Long & McQuade and Tanner's Books.)

The audience is invited to join the choir, and the organist Nicholas Fairbank, in various familiar carols, in an atmosphere that is being promoted as family-friendly. "If little children want to come up front and help me conduct," Butterfield says, "I make that happen."

The choir on its own will also perform an interesting mix of works: Of the Father's Love Begotten, a setting of a fifth-century Roman text; a Basque hymn; The Shepherds' Farewell from Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ; O Magnum Mysterium, by the American composer Morten Lauridsen; and a setting of Blake's poem The Lamb by John Tavener -- the popular contemporary English composer Sir John Tavener (born 1944), that is, not his 16th-century almost-namesake, John Taverner.

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The night before Christmas Eve, CapriCCio Vocal Ensemble will offer a holiday program titled, lest there be any doubt, The Night Before the Night Before.

(Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.; Christ Church Cathedral, 930 Burdett Ave.; adults $25, seniors $22, students $10; in advance at Ivy's Book Shop, Larsen Music and the Cathedral office.)

In this program of carols and other seasonal fare, CapriCCio will be joined, as in past Christmas concerts, by the Beacon Hill Brass. This concert is not being advertised as a sing-along, so presumably one joins in from the pews at one's peril.

A highlight of the program will be the popular Christmas Cantata for SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) chorus, brass quartet and organ by the American composer Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006). Pinkham, whose career was spent in Massachusetts, was a prolific and versatile composer whose music was accessible and much-performed. He was a working church musician from his student days, and for more than 40 years served as the music director of King's Chapel in Boston; he wrote many sacred works for organ, solo voice and choir, which often reflected his interest in the forms, modes, contrapuntal techniques and sonorities of early music.

Christmas Cantata, composed in 1957 and subtitled Sinfonia Sacra, has three short movements with Latin texts, all dealing with the Nativity. The first movement, Quem vidistis pastores? (What have you seen, shepherds?), is solemn and somewhat severe; the second, O magnum mysterium (O great mystery), is rapt, and suggestive of Gregorian chant; the third, Gloria in excelsis Deo (Glory to God in the highest), is celebratory.