Month: December 2015

Come and Sing!

On Saturday 30th January 2016, we will be holding another of our popular  Come and Sing days, directed, as usual by the choir’s MD, Ian Crawford. Having held these events in Crosby during the past few years, we have decided this time to use Emmanuel Church, Southport.  If you have come to one of these events in the past you will know that they are rewarding and fun, providing an opportunity to sing some great music in an informal setting.

The music we will be singing this time will be Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Jonathan Dove’s Missa Brevis. Less familiar than the Gloria, Vivaldi’s Magnificat is another wonderfully tuneful and relatively straightforward piece, which can be enjoyed by less experienced choral singers. Dove’s Missa Brevis is perhaps more challenging, notable for its lively syncopation and dancing rhythms. But Dove is experienced in writing for musical theatre and his music is very appealing at the same time as being very up-to-date. He aims to make both performing and listening to his music an enjoyable experience. The Southport Bach Choir performed the Missa Brevis in the 2013-14 season and enjoyed it so much that they are delighted to have the opportunity of sharing this work with other singers.

Here is a recording of a recent liturgical performance of the Gloria by the choir of Bath Abbey which gives you some idea of this attractive work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bek2DOviXE.

Tickets for singers are £15. And of course there will be cakes – something that has become a feature of our Come and Sings!

If you have any questions ring Suzanne on 017704 553903. For further details and application form click here: Come and Sing 2015 flyer.

Christams Concert 2015

Our Christmas concert this year will include Charpentier’s atmospheric mass based on French carol tunes: Messe de minuit. Although these tunes are not particularly familiar to an English audience, they lend the solemn words of the mass a lightness and joyfulness appropriate to the magical moment of Christ’s birth. Our performance on Saturday 12 December will be accompanied by Robert Woods on the piano and organ, and instrumentalists from Liverpool Concert Orchestra.

The rest of the programme will consist of carols old and new. This year, as a small tribute to Sir David Willcocks, who died earlier this year, we are performing his setting of ‘Tomorrow shall be my dancing day’. We shall also sing ‘Wassail’ by his son Jonathan Willcocks.  Bob Chilcott has become something of a favourite with the choir, and we shall be singing several settings and arrangements by him.

In our summer concert we were delighted to sing a piece by our own Director of Music, Ian Crawford. He set the words of Christina Rossetti’s charming poem, ‘A Birthday’, in honour of the choir’s 50th anniversary. For this December concert, celebrating Christ’s (rather more significant) birthday, he has set the traditional words of ‘The Boar’s Head Carol’, and keeps the choir on its toes with syncopated rhythms and the need for clean, clear articulation! We hope to do the carol justice on Saturday.