Particular thanks too to Jamie Knights and the Junior Choir who came along and gave us a great set of numbers – all from memory. For once the adults sat where we could see the Juniors’ faces, and there is no doubt that they could teach us a thing or two In the area of communicating! They were brilliant.

It was a very happy and enjoyable Saturday and so worthwhile. Thanks again to the parish of Derry Hill, and we hope it won’t be too long before you invite us back again!

The programme was:

Nystedt – Laudate Dominum
Bruckner – Locus iste
Faure – Cantique de Jean Racine (piano)
Various songs performed by the Junior Choir
Elgar – Bavarian Highlands (Dance, Lullaby, The Huntsmen)
Mozart – Ave verum corpus
Chilcott – Aesop’s Fables (The Tortoise and the Hare; The Mountain in Labour; The Goose and the Swan)
Tippet – Negro Spirituals from Child of our Time
Dove – Passing of the Year (Ah! Sunflower; Answer July)

The accompanist ws Jamie Knights, and the concert was conducted by Nigel Perrin.

The City of Bath Bach Choir present

BANUWA!

Festive songs for Summer

Bob Chilcott: Aesop’s Fables
Eric Whitacre: Three Flower Songs
Jonathan Dove: The Passing of the Year
Edward Elgar: Songs from the Bavarian Highlands
Mike Brewer: Festive Songs from Africa

Bring a picnic and join the Choir in the Centre’s grounds after the concert

Bach, Copland and Britten

Bach: Komm, Jesu, Komm
Copland: In the Beginning
Britten: St Nicolas

Marcus Sealy – Organ
Nigel Perrin – Conductor

Is Bach’s B Minor Mass the greatest work ever written? It’s a big claim.  Or the St Matthew Passion?  Every Bach lover will have a view.  And many conductors put off directing  it until they feel equipped to take on the challenges it posses.  This was a mature extrovert performance, the tempi beautifully judged from the opening Kyrie, confident and assured.

It had bounding energy where the score demands it, in the Cum Sancto Spiritu: quiet, restrained melancholy in the Crucifixius, bursting into life with dramatic intensity in the Et resurrexit.

The Sanctus and Osanna brought joyful optimism with a sense of urgency and pace before the contemplative reassurance of the final Dona Nobis pacem.  This was a reading which had the sometimes elusive combination of ebullience and questioning, of breathless urgency and thoughtful reflection.  Nigel Perrin got it just right – and how well the choir responded, despite the abbey acoustic not being at its most benign. I heard none of the opening remarks from the pulpit.  But the singing was inspired: it did this wonderful piece full justice and that is a very significant achievement.

Soloist Lucy Hall has a fine clear soprano, the phrasing graceful, and confident in the upper register.  And there is more to come as the voice matures.  William Purefoy’s alto is very impressive, assured and mellow, the range controlled and expressive, his Agnus Dei infinitely moving, yet heartening, a perfect blend.

Tenor James Geer took the Benedictus with elegance and poise, the voice rounded and resonant.  Alas, Stephen Varcoe lacked the power and vocal weight to compete with the accompaniment, especially the horn, standing just below him.  The part needs a big robust basso and he is a very good light-toned baritone.

Music for Awhile is one of our better instrumental groups under leader Margaret Faultless – very appropriate name.  This was a model of sympathetic yet firm accompaniment,  the string playing immaculate, the woodwind obbligatos excellently judged, and the trumpets suitably exultant and insistent.  Marcus Sealy’s organ continuo was as utterly reliable and supportive as ever.  This was an immensely satisfying B Minor and Nigel Perrin clearly has an empathetic understanding of its complexity and its majestic dimensions.  The abbey audience showed its total approval.

©Peter Lloyd Williams Bath Chronicle 19 March 2012

This year over 250 singers attended, as we focused on our current work in preparation, J S Bach’s great Mass in B minor. Those of you who have sung it before will know this is not a work for the faint-hearted, and it was with some trepidation that we launched ourselves into endless runs of semi-quavers taken at break-neck speed – but by goodness what a thrill to sing this magnificent work as a part of such a large choir.

Members of the Choir had been very busy baking cakes and these were available at the breaks in the workshop and proved to be very popular!  It was great to see so many ‘returners’ to the Workshop, people who come back to sing with us year after year, as well as so many new faces.

The Workshop finished with an abridged run through of the choral elements of the Mass, and after that we all left, happily into a chilly Bath evening.  The whole thing was summed up by Chairman Mervyn Harris in the Choir programme for the day where he said: “We run these day-long annual  workshops for a number of reasons, not least because it enables us to sing with lots of other people – both familiar and new, from near and far – knowing that the common joy of singing together has brought us all here.”

Next year’s workshop will take place on Saturday 26 January 2013 in St Michael’s Without in central Bath.  The work to be studied will be announced shortly, and we look forward to seeing you there for what is always a simply fabulous day.

Each night there will be a selection of Christmas songs performed by the Junior Choir under their director Jamie Knights, and a short recital by a talented young instrumentalist.

The accompanist for the Choir will be Marcus Sealy and the conductor will be Nigel Perrin.

This joyful annual event reminds us all that Christmas is now pretty close: time for present buying is short, so we better get busy.

The music is good too, presided over, after his absence last year, by Nigel Perrin, in genial mood.  We started with Bach Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light, which established the quality at the outset, the choir placed around the Pump Room bearing candles.

Then a pleasantly eclectic mix of carols, old and new.  I particularly enjoyed the Chilcott  Midwinter, flowing and rhythmic,  For Him all Stars Have Shone, and his brilliant setting of the Sussex Carol, full of life and urgency. Also the very tender  Ave Maria  by Basque composer Javi Busto  and a new carol by choir member Bernard Wight, One Mighty Day,  jazzy and syncopated and great fun to sing.

And it was good to hear Peter Wishart’s Alleluya, A New Work is Come on Hand again,  bouncy and pulsing with energy.  Marcus Sealy played with his customary unobtrusive excellence throughout –  though I did miss the oboes in The Shepherds’ Farewell.

The Junior Choir did their stuff under Jamie Knights, including a piece of his own, Peaceful the Wondrous Night, sung with the adults, lilting and pleasantly tuneful, incorporating the Silent Night theme.

The guest artist from Wells Cathedral School on Wednesday was harpist Kirsty Chaplin, with a lovely rippling Italiana and John Parry’s Sonata, with its Welsh folk tune Dafydd y Gareg Wen motif, beautifully played with graceful fluency.

The concluding Twelve Days of Christmas came over with jaunty robust good humour, followed by a splendid Tom Lehrer-like caricature encore, in which most of the participants came to a sticky end. Great fun.  So, as usual, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening’s music, the choir in good voice  which was just as well, because the audience seemed noticeably short of singers, when our turn came.  But I did my best.

©Peter Lloyd Williams Bath Chronicle Friday 17 December 2011

Howard Goodall’s setting of the Requiem, premiered in 2008, is a work of eloquent and moving contrasts, bring together Latin text: Biblical words from Revelation: Newman’s Lead Kindly Light and a selection of poetry. It is set for a combination of organ, piano and harp, with soprano and baritone solos, giving the choral writing an ethereal quality, yet allowing considerable dramatic expression. Stephen Varcoe’s warm baritone brought meaning to the text, every word crystal clear and Isobel Buchanan’s mature soprano gave another poignant dimension to the poem In Flanders Fields.

The work has a palpable unity in its fusion of pathos and sorrow, infused with hope at the final In Paradisum, sung with a controlled intensity which was very moving. The choir’s pianissimo singing was wonderfully effective, enhancing the expansive robust Lead Kindly Light – what a lovely setting.

And the Lacrimosa for chorus, baritone and soprano solo, has a tenderness, with the harp and organ accompaniment setting off the choral sound to perfection. Marcus Sealy played the organ, Jamie Knights the piano and Kate Watt the harp, in a performance which reached a level of serious musical excellence. Conductor Nigel Perrin couldn’t have asked for more – but he will.

The first half Totus Tuus, written by Gorecki for Pope John Paul II, was another triumph of controlled soft singing, the final Maria floating up into the Abbey roof.

Tavener’s Svyati, with Gabrielle Yuen on the cello, and cavernous bass drone, has an almost hypnotic effect, using the Trisagion from the Orthodox liturgy with an elemental symmetry unique to Tavener.

We also had Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque, sung a capella, quaintly discordant, quiet yet powerful and Part’s Beatitudes, with the organ, full of colour and harmonic interest, the tintinnabuli effect introduced with infinite subtlety: all notable for concentrated potency and attention to Nigel Perrin’s precise direction: fine singing indeed. Marcus Sealy’s rendering of Peeters Toccata, Fugue et Hymne sur Ave Maris Stella showed us the splendid range of the Klais organ and his continuing artistry at the keyboard in this lively piece, played here with panache and musical understanding.

As we left the abbey, there was a perceptible undercurrent of satisfaction, both for a high quality evening’s music, and the two charities, the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes to which the concert was dedicated.

©Peter Lloyd Williams Bath Chronicle 10 November 2011

Arriving at Fiumicino Airport in the afternoon of 21 October we were met by Bob, who directed us on to a coach and took us to our centrally located hotel.  We had no sooner arrived than Musical Director Nigel Perrin insisted on an hour’s rehearsal, in the only available – but small – room. This succeeded in trapping in some other hotel guests as our rehearsal room blocked their exit from the hotel. Our first impromtu captive audience!

Sant' Agnese, Piazza Navona, Rome

Saturday dawned a very acceptable 18° and we had the morning for sightseeing before arriving at our concert venue, the magnificent church of Sant’Agnese in Piazza Navona.   Sadly, that morning Bob had discovered that the church organ was broken, so we had to quickly re-arrange the concert to comprise all unaccompanied choral works.  However, we sang to a packed church and much applause. Later that night an enjoyable choir party was held at a local restaurant, after which a sizeable proportion of the choir decided to go on to the Trevi Fountain, which resulted in a real impromptu recital, much appreciated by the ‘captive Trevi audience’. More applause!

On the Sunday morning, we enjoyed the privilege of singing Mass at the Venerable English College in Rome – a quite unforgettable experience and we were all most grateful for the hospitality and friendship shown.

Sightseeing for the rest of the day and on Monday morning, was followed by a return to the airport and an afternoon flight home. We all reflected on having had a great weekend of sights, singing, camaraderie and fun.

Choir members on the coach to Rome airport