This section will be updated with all of the information for members to attend rehearsals in a safe way. This is based on a Risk Assessment and coming from that some specific Guidance to Members. There will be a responsibility on everyone to take precautions to protect themselves and the needs of others while we once more ‘find our voice’.

The source document is the risk assessment, which outlines the known problems and the mitigations which are being put in place to minimise the possibility of infection.

There is also a summary of this as Guidance to Members.

These documents will be updated if regulations, guidance or circumstances change. Members should note that it may be necessary for rehearsals to be cancelled at short notice if circumstances change and they should regularly check for email circulations before attending.

The Annual General Meeting of the Society will take place on Wednesday 8th September 2021 starting at 7.30 p.m. in Sunderland Minster. The meeting will be as brief as possible to allow for new changes to be put in place for the first rehearsal in our new start.

The Agenda, minutes of the last previous meeting and details of the accounts are available below :

A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster, starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted by David Murray.

Featuring a special guest performance by Bradley Creswick of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto

and Haydn Nelson Mass (No.11 in D Minor) and Te Deum (in C Major).

Soloists: Laurie Ashworth – soprano, Clare McCaldin – mezzo-soprano, Nick Smith – tenor, Patrick Owston – bass

Tickets – £14.00 for Nave (£8 concessions for full-time students and on income related benefits) or £8.00 (Gallery – limited view). Accompanied under 16s free. Tickets will be available from members of the Society, at the door, or on-line from www.wegottickets.com/BCS – who also have a direct link on the home page of this website.

Doors open from 6.45 p.m. Apart from seats marked for Patrons there are no allocated seats.

Bradley Creswick has been described as “an outstanding, internationally renowned, musician and leader of the Royal Northern Sinfonia orchestra who has endeared himself to audiences at the Sage Gateshead for the quality of his playing and his sheer enjoyment of the role.”

Now retired from RNS, he was appointed Leader Emeritus and more recently an MBE for services to music. Playing with friends remains a vibrant part of his life and he continues to give recitals across the UK. The Society is delighted that he can join us to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, one of the best known violin concertos.

The Missa in angustiis (Mass for troubled times) or Nelson Mass, is one of fourteen masses  written by Joseph Haydn. It is one of the six masses written near the end of his life which are, together, now seen as a culmination of Haydn’s liturgical composition. Haydn’s original title may also have come from illness and exhaustion at this time, which followed his supervision of the first performances of The Creation, completed a few months earlier. Though Haydn’s reputation was at its peak in 1798, when he wrote this mass, his world was in turmoil. Napoleon had won four major battles with Austria in less than a year. The previous year, in early 1797, his armies had crossed the Alps and threatened Vienna itself. In May 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt to destroy Britain’s trade routes to the East.

The summer of 1798 was therefore a terrifying time for Austria, and when Haydn finished this mass, his own title, in the catalogue of his works, was Missa in angustiis (Mass for troubled times). What Haydn did not know when he wrote the mass, but what he and his audience heard, was that on 1 August, Napoleon had been dealt a stunning defeat in the Battle of the Nile by British forces led by Admiral Horatio Nelson. Because of this coincidence, the mass gradually acquired the nickname Lord Nelson Mass.

The Te Deum is a magnificent choral drama in three parts was a commission from Empress Marie Therese, the wife of Franz I of Austria. Haydn was a frequent visitor to the imperial palace in Vienna. The Empress had a good voice; Haydn once accompanied her on a private performance of the soprano part of The Creation. The Empress repeatedly used to ask Haydn for some specially-composed church music, but Prince Esterhazy was reluctant to allow his famous employee to write for anyone but himself.

Evidently, however, Marie Therese finally got her way – we know not how! The Te Deum was composed around 1799, but its first recorded performance was not until 1800 at Eisenstadt, the home of the Esterhazy family, to celebrate Lord Nelson’s (and, inevitably, Lady Hamilton’s) arrival there.

The Te Deum is a choral work throughout, without the solo sections that are heard in Haydn’s masses and other sacred works. Two lengthy Allegro passages surround a central Adagio, effectively making the work a concerto for chorus and orchestra.

A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster, starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted by David Murray.

Soloist : Anna Dias.

Come and enjoy an evening filled with a fine mixture of traditional and contemporary choral music which will fill you with the spirit of Christmas. The content ranges from Holst to Todd, Chilcott and Rutter festive favourites, and a Christmas Medley by David Murray.

Tickets – £14.00 for Nave (£8 concessions for full-time students and on income related benefits) or £8.00 (Gallery – limited view). Accompanied under 16s free. Tickets are available from members of the Society, at the door, or on-line from www.wegottickets.com/event/560106 – who also have a direct link on the home page of this website.

Doors open from 6.45 p.m. Apart from seats marked for Patrons there are no allocated seats.

A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster, starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted by David Murray.

Tickets remain at their pre-Covid prices and can be obtained via any member of the choir or by making a request using the Contact Us page of this website.

On this occasion we are not using the WeGotTickets option to offer tickets, so please ignore the ‘Booking Tickets’ page and any reference and link to WeGotTickets on the ‘Contact Us’ page.

In the Nave £14.00, £8.00 (students & income related benefits), accompanied Under 16s free (but they do need a ticket to ensure a seat), and £8.00 in the Gallery (with restricted view).

Soloists : Laurie Ashworth – soprano, Clare McCaldin – mezzosoprano, Richard Pinkstone – tenor,

Patrick Owston – bass.

Gioachino Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle (Little solemn mass) was written in 1863, possibly at the request of Count Alexis Pillet-Will for his wife Louise to whom it is dedicated. The composer, who had retired from composing operas more than 30 years before, described it as “the last of my péchés de vieillesse” (sins of old age).

The extended work is a missa solemnis, but Rossini labeled it, not without irony, petite (little). He scored it originally for twelve singers, four of them soloists, two pianos and harmonium. The mass was first performed on 14 March 1864 at the couple’s new home in Paris. Rossini later produced an orchestral version, including an additional movement, a setting of the hymn “O salutaris hostia” as a soprano aria. This version of the mass was not performed during his lifetime because he could not obtain permission to perform it with female singers in a church. It was first performed three months after his death, at the Salle Ventadour in Paris by the company of the Théâtre-Italien on 24 February 1869.

The unusual scoring for voices, two pianos and harmonium is in the Neapolitan harpsichord tradition of the 18th century. Rossini specified, on the second page of his manuscript, twelve singers in all, noting on the title page: “Twelve singers of three sexes, men, women and castrati will suffice for its execution: that is, eight for the choir, four soloists, in all twelve cherubim”.

The planned Rossini concert will now take place on Saturday the 18th June 2022

Petite Messe Solennelle – Rossini

A Saturday evening performance at St.Mary’s Church, Claremont Gardens, Whitley Bay, NE26 3SF, conducted by David Murray, starting at 7.30 p.m.

Come and enjoy an evening filled with a fine mixture of traditional and contemporary choral music which will fill you with the spirit of Christmas. The content ranges from Holst to Todd, Chilcott and Rutter festive favourites, and a Christmas Medley by David Murray.

Tickets are from £5 to £15 and can be obtained from their website Bishopwearmouth Choral Society Concert | St Mary’s (stmarysmonkseaton.org.uk) or at the door.

As you will be aware it has not been possible to hold choir rehearsals for some time because of Covid-19 and all of our recent concert plans had to be cancelled. However we now have a target date to resume rehearsals of Wednesday 8th September 2021. Arrangements are being put in place to make these rehearsals Covid-secure and details of how this will be done are now published in the Members News section for anyone to consult. We very much look forward to re-establishing regular concerts but this will take some time to organise while we ‘find our voice’. All details will be published here under Events in due course.