Choral Workshop 2025
Bath Bach Choir X David Hill
Saturday 25 January 20259.30am–4.00pm
St Swithin’s Church, Bath BA1 5LY
Back by popular demand, choral maestro David Hill MBE directed our 2025 choral workshop.
Our annual workshop on 25 January featured Bach’s Cantata Die Elenden sollen essen (BWV 75), part of the Leipzig Cantata Cycle which also enthralled last year’s workshop attendees, and Jauchzet, frohlocket from the Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248).
As Musical Director of The Bach Choir, David is well-known for his exacting performance standards, sensitive musicality and wry sense of humour – ideal qualities in a workshop director. We had a great day of fun, camaraderie and musical learning under his leadership.
For the final sing-through we were joined by Benedict Collins Rice (tenor) and two choral scholars from the Oxford Bach Soloists – Daisy Livesey (soprano) and Hera Protopapas Wettergren (mezzo-soprano).
The workshop was being held at St Swithin’s Church, The Paragon, Bath, BA1 5LY, close to the centre of Bath.
David Hill MBE workshop director
“
I can’t imagine a more enjoyable day
than studying Bach and his amazing
cantatas. They represent his whole
being as a musician and man of God.
We will work at the technical demands
of his music and learn together why
Bach continues to be the musical guide
for so many in their lives.”
David Hill
I can’t imagine a more enjoyable day
than studying Bach and his amazing
cantatas. They represent his whole
being as a musician and man of God.
We will work at the technical demands
of his music and learn together why
Bach continues to be the musical guide
for so many in their lives.”
David Hill
Renowned for his fine musicianship, David Hill is widely respected as both a choral and orchestral conductor. His talent has been recognised by his appointments as Musical Director of The Bach Choir, Music Director of Leeds Philharmonic Society, Associate Guest conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum. He was Chief Conductor of the BBC Singers from September 2007 to September 2017 and is a former Music Director of Southern Sinfonia.
Born in Carlisle and educated at Chetham’s School of Music, of which he is now a Governor, he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the remarkably young age of 17. Having been Organ Scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, David Hill returned to hold the post of Director of Music from 2004–2007. His other appointments have included Master of the Music at Winchester Cathedral, Master of the Music at Westminster Cathedral and Artistic Director of the Philharmonia Chorus. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Southampton for Services to Music.
He has a broad-ranging discography covering repertoire from Thomas Tallis to a number of world premiere recordings. As well as achieving prestigious Grammy and Gramophone Awards, many of his discs have been recommended as Critic’s Choices. His ongoing series of English choral music for Naxos has received particular acclaim including being shortlisted for the 2010 Gramophone Awards.
In January 2019 David Hill was awarded an MBE for services to music.
Daisy Livesey is a soprano oratorio singer supported by the Josephine Baker Trust. She is in her fourth year as an undergraduate at the Royal Academy of Music. She has been a regular contributor to the Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata series. She is proud to be the Jennifer Vyvyan Scholar for the academic year 2024–25. Already she has undertaken many solo engagements with internationally renowned orchestras and conductors, recently performing amongst many other works Bach St Matthew Passion and St John Passion and Haydn’s Nelson Mass. She is a former choral scholar with the Oxford Bach Soloists (2022–23).
Hera Protopapas is a Swedish-Greek mezzo soprano with a passion for storytelling. She is particularly interested in Baroque and contemporary music and fascinated by narratives that transcend time periods and styles. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Music with first-class honours in 2022; whilst there she was a regular contributor to the Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata series, through which she worked with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Masaaki Suzuki, Rachel Podger and John Butt. Hera is a former choral scholar with the Oxford Bach Soloists (2023–24).
Beethoven Symphony No.9
Saturday 8 March 20257.30pm
The Forum, Bath
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 ‘Choral’
Copland Fanfare for the Common Man
Liszt Les Préludes
Ešenvalds A Shadow
We join forces with Bath Symphony Orchestra to perform Beethoven’s mighty Choral Symphony. Beethoven was the first composer to introduce voices into a symphony with a setting of Schiller’s Ode to Joy.
Another innovator, Liszt was the first composer to use the term ‘symphonic poem’ to describe a work linked to some extra-musical idea. Les Préludes draws on a poem by Lamartine on the theme of love and war.
Bath Bach Choir – conducted by Musical Director, Benedict Collins Rice – will perform Ešenvalds’ setting of Longfellow’s poem A Shadow, which showcases his powerful use of rich and glorious melody. The 8-part choir, accompanied by the gentle chimes of the glockenspiel, alternately soars with joy and quietly contemplates the flow of time.
Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man opens the programme. Composed in 1942 to support the American war effort, the fanfare does not celebrate any individual hero, but the power found in all of us to change the world.
Llio Evans soprano
Bethan Langford mezzo-soprano
Alex Sprague tenor
Paul Carey Jones bass
Eugene Monteith and Adam Laughton conductors
Alison Boden leader
A celebration of Psalms
Saturday 12 July 20257.30pm
St Mary’s Church, Bathwick
Leonard Bernstein Chichester Psalms
Lili Boulanger Psalm 24 and Psalm 130
Charles Ives Psalm 90
Bath Bach Choir’s summer concert is an uplifting celebration of familiar and lesser-known psalms: the Old Testament poems, songs and prayers from Israel’s history that provide us with uniquely poetic depictions of the praise, faith and hope of God’s people. The centrepiece of our concert is Leonard Bernstein’s magical Chichester Psalms, his setting of six psalms that was commissioned by the Dean of Chichester Cathedral for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival. Serenely blending biblical Hebrew verse with Christian choral tradition, the Chichester Psalms was the composer’s implicit plea for brotherhood and peace for displaced and troubled peoples. Its final lines give us a vision of a better future: ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to live together in unity.’ The performance will be accompanied by The Facade Ensemble, specialists in 20th-century repertoire, playing organ, harp and percussion in a pared-down orchestration produced by Bernstein himself.
Admirers of the Chichester Psalms – a popular performance piece ever since it was written – may also enjoy the choir’s typically fearless exploration of less familiar 20th-century psalm settings at this concert. Two of these are by the Parisian prodigy Lili Boulanger (1893–1918), who studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won the Prix de Rome. Influenced by Debussy, her life was short but productive. Her psalm settings, possibly written as a response to the First World War, are among her most important works, written in a style that is both strong and subtle. Finally, the American Charles Ives’ (1874–1954) complex setting of Psalm 90 for chorus, organ and bells displays his typically avant-garde (for the time) musical ideas. Prepare for abstract harmonies alongside lyrical hymn-like passages, unconstrained by rules.
The Facade Ensemble
Benedict Collins Rice conductor
Carmina Burana
Saturday 1 November 20257.30pm
Kingswood School Theatre, Bath
For our mid-autumn concert, we are bringing together an array of exciting international musicians, with Carl Orff’s famous cantata Carmina Burana as the centrepiece of what’s set to be an upbeat and scintillating performance.
World-renowned drummers BackBeat Percussion Quartet will raise the roof in Orff’s own arrangement of Carmina Burana for two pianos, voices and drums, with concert pianist Thomas Kelly playing the piano opposite Marcus Sealy. A thrilling setting of 24 secular poems (‘songs of Beuern’) written in Middle High German and Latin by medieval monks in Bavaria, this much-loved work describes physical and spiritual love, the joys of spring, gambling, dancing in the meadows and drinking in the tavern – all subject to the whims of Fortune (‘O Fortuna’), empress of the world.
Orff initially envisioned Carmina Burana as a full stage work for theatre, with sets, costumes and dancers, and it was thus staged at its premiere in 1937 at the Frankfurt Opera. With its pulsating rhythm, racy themes and chant, it is also a highly successful concert piece.
British-Spanish soprano Ana Beard Fernández, who recently recorded a song collection with Roderick Williams, and Britten Pears Young Artist Hugo Herman-Wilson, baritone, will represent the lovers being drawn together – one moment in love, the next catastrophising on loneliness, the next mining the pleasure to be found in love’s fleshly joys and weighing up desire against chastity.
With Thomas Kelly also set for a solo spot, don’t miss this rip-roaring display of superbly talented musicianship at Kingswood Theatre (Kingswood School, Bath BA1 5RG).
Ana Beard Fernández soprano
Ashley Harries tenor
Hugo Herman-Wilson baritone
Backbeat Percussion Quartet
Thomas Kelly piano
Marcus Sealy piano
Benedict Collins Rice conductor
Carols by Candlelight
18 & 19 December 20257.00pm | 8.30pm | The Pump Room, Bath
In this the 250th anniversary month of Jane Austen’s birth, we are delighted to present ‘A Georgian Christmas’ as the theme for our much-loved Carols by Candlelight concerts at The Pump Room.
Set against the twinkling backdrop of Bath’s seasonal sights, sounds and aromas, we will stage four one-hour performances of Christmas music on 18 & 19 December – making it possible for guests to fit in a concert around shopping, dining and general wassailing.
The early-evening performances, from 7–8pm, will include the angelic children of Voices for Life; while the later-evening ones, from 8.30–9.30pm, will feature the virtuosic violin-playing of Hester Wiltshire, specialist musician from Wells Cathedral School.
In a heartwarming programme specially curated by conductor Benedict Collins Rice, the music to be performed by the choir is all drawn from the Georgian era, a mix of the traditional and the not-so-familiar.
Join us in The Pump Room for a joyous celebration that many generations call the true start of Christmas in Bath.
Voices for Life Bath Children’s Choir
Hester Wiltshire violin
Marcus Sealy accompanist
Benedict Collins Rice conductor