Archive for April, 2015

Need an extra Verdi poster?

If you need an extra poster for the June 14th Verdi concert at the Sage just click on the link below for a pdf file to print from.

ONE Verdi Requiem card

Coffee Morning – Saturday June 24th 2017

A Saturday morning event in Fulwell Methodist Church, from 10.00 a.m. till 12.00 m.d.

Why not join the Society in a social event which comes with a raffle and stalls, whilst enjoying the tea/coffee, scones and a chat.

‘An ideal combination of composer, conductor and choir’…….

 

Our thanks to Keith Nixon for allowing the publication of this crit of our concert on March 28th 2015, prepared for publication in the Sunderland Echo :

“Hats off to Bishopwearmouth Choral Society! Their Spring concert was as uplifting as it was outstanding.

Conductor David Murray chose an all-Elgar programme: the great song cycle Sea Pictures framed by two choral pieces which proved a perfect vehicle to show off his marvellous choir.

The concert opened with Scenes from Bavarian Highlands, a relatively early work and generally lightweight in tone. It shows Elgar at his most carefree and joyous – qualities savoured to the full in Murray’s exuberant performance. The highlight was the haunting ‘Aspiration’, sung with reverential tenderness.

Written for the striking contralto Clara Butt, who gave the work’s première dressed a mermaid, Sea Pictures is Elgar’s only orchestral song cycle. It finds the composer at his most elegiac, yet with a warm twinkle in his eye. These exquisite miniatures depict the sea in all its guises, peaceful and storm-tossed by turns. They were sung with so much passion by Sarah Pring that in ‘The Swimmer’ she was occasionally all at sea with her nautical vowel-sounds. ‘Where Corals Lie’ was, however, delightfully performed.

The second half of the concert was devoted to The Music Makers, an autobiographical work, full of quotes from Elgar’s other scores. It is perhaps his most challenging and advanced vocal work in terms of harmony and rhythmic complexity. Impassioned playing in the orchestral introduction paved the way for a choral contribution whose sharply focused tone and unflagging energy were hugely impressive. Whether as ‘dreamers of dreams’ or as ‘the movers and shakers of the world’, the choir left the audience in no doubt of music’s power. ‘That ye of the past must die’ was delivered with such intensity of feeling that audience members were actually heard to gasp.

When the final bars drifted away to nothingness, the rapturous applause that followed was richly deserved. The audience had experienced something very special – an ideal combination of composer, conductor and choir.”

Keith Nixon