Choral Workshop 2025
Bath Bach Choir X David Hill
Saturday 25 January 20259.30am–4.00pm
St Swithin’s Church, Bath BA1 5LY
From Leipzig to Bath: Bach Cantata Cycle
Back by popular demand, choral maestro David Hill MBE directed our annual workshop
At our 2025 choral workshop we focused on 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).
David Hill MBE workshop director
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