Bishopwearmouth Choral Society are pleased to be part of this year’s St.Mary’s Concerts series and will be performing a selection of David Murray arrangements in St.Mary the Virgin Church, Claremont Gardens, Whitley Bay, NE26 3SF on Saturday June 30th 2018 – details to be confirmed.
A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted by David Murray.
The concert will feature David Murray’s own arrangements, for choir, piano and string quintet, of some of the great songs to have come out of America in the twentieth century. These will include a Gershwin selection, a Jerome Kern Medley, and a Carpenters Sequence.
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 http://www.wegottickets.com/BCS – who also have a direct link on the home page of this website. Doors open from 6.45 p.m.
A Saturday morning event in Fulwell Methodist Church from 10.00 a.m. till 12.00 midday.
Why not join the Society in a social event which comes with a raffle and stalls, while enjoying the tea/coffee, scones and a chat
A Saturday evening concert by Bishopwearmouth Young Singers, supported by members of Bishopwearmouth Choral Society, at 7.30 p.m. in Ewesley Road Methodist Church.
A performance of ‘A Christmas Carol’ – words by Tony Runham and music by David Murray.
No tickets necessary but a donation of £5.00 would be most welcome – accompanied under 16s free admission.
A Saturday evening concert with Bishopwearmouth Young Singers in Sunderland Minster starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted by David Murray.
A cornucopia of Christmas music featuring ‘Ceremony of Carols’ by Britten, ‘On Christmas Night’ by Chilcott, and ‘What Sweeter Music’ by Rutter – with other items, including a soloist and with Bishopwearmouth Young Singers.
On Christmas Night, by Bob Chilcott, is a musical celebration of the Christmas Story, presented as a sequence of eight original carols. Chilcott calls upon several familiar carol melodies within his own settings, resulting in an array of styles and moods – from comforting and reflective to jubilant, swinging and folksy.
A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28, is a choral piece by Benjamin Britten, scored for chorus, solo voices, and harp. Written for Christmas, it consists of eleven movements, with text from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, edited by Gerald Bullett; it is in Middle English. The piece was written in 1942 while Britten was at sea, going from the USA to England.
What sweeter music can we bring than a carol, for to sing, by John Rutter, goes right to the essence of the season.
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 http://www.wegottickets.com/BCS – who also have a direct link on the home page of this website. Doors open from 6.45 p.m.
A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted 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 http://www.wegottickets.com/BCS – who also have a direct link on the home page of this website.
Soloists : Hannah Thomson – soprano, Isobel Cheeseman – alto, & Richard Gooding – baritone.
The SATB choir and organ version of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem, Op. 9 was published in 1948. It had been commissioned six years earlier under the collaborationist Vichy regime, but Duruflé was still working on it in 1944 when the regime collapsed and in fact did not complete it until the year of publication. The work is for SATB choir with brief mezzo-soprano and baritone solos. At the time of commission, Duruflé was working on an organ suite using themes from Gregorian chants. He incorporated his sketches for that work into the Requiem, which uses numerous themes from the Gregorian “Mass for the Dead. Nearly all the thematic material in the work comes from chant. Like many requiems, Duruflé’s omits the Gradual and the Tract. The Dies irae text, perhaps the most famous portion of the Requiem Mass, is not set. Duruflé’s omission of this text and inclusion of others (Pie Jesu, Libera me, In Paradisum, from the burial service, mirroring Fauré, makes the composition calmer and more meditative than some other settings.
Duruflé was born in Louviers, Eure in 1902. He became a chorister at the Rouen Cathedral Choir School from 1912 to 1918, where he studied piano and organ. The choral plainsong tradition at Rouen became a strong and lasting influence.At age 17, upon moving to Paris, he took private organ lessons with Charles Tournemire, whom he assisted at Basilique Ste-Clotilde, Paris until 1927. In 1920 Duruflé entered the Conservatoire de Paris, eventually graduating with first prizes in organ (1922), harmony (1924), fugue (1924), piano accompaniment (1926) and composition (1928).
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodies, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Poulenc’s
wealthy parents intended him for a business career in Poulenc Frères, their family pharmaceutical company, and did not allow him to enrol at a music college. Largely self-educated musically, he studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor after the composer’s parents died. Poulenc soon came under the influence of Erik Satie, under whose tutelage he became one of a group of young composers known collectively as Les Six. In his early works Poulenc became known for his high spirits and irreverence. During the 1930s a much more serious side to his nature emerged, particularly in the religious music he composed from 1936 onwards, which he alternated with his more light-hearted works.
His Gloria scored for soprano solo, large orchestra, and chorus, is a setting of the Gloria text from the mass ordinary. One of Poulenc’s most celebrated works, it was commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation in honor of Sergei Koussevitzky and his wife Natalia, the namesakes of the foundation. Gloria was premiered on 21 January 1961 in Boston, Massachusetts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Chorus Pro Musica under conductor Charles Münch with Adele Addison as soloist. The first recording (also in 1961), for EMI, was conducted by Georges Prêtre, under the supervision of the composer, with Rosanna Carteri as the soloist. Among later recordings of the music, the RCA Victor recording by the Robert Shaw Chorale in 1965 won a Grammy Award for the “Best Choral Performance.”
A Saturday morning event in Fulwell Methodist Church from 10.00 a.m. till 12.00 midday.
Why not join the Society in a social event which comes with a raffle and stalls, while enjoying the tea/coffee, scones and a chat.
A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted by David Murray.
Soloists : Laurie Ashworth (Soprano), Samantha Price (Mezzo-soprano), Richard Pinkstone (Tenor), and Alexander Robin Baker (Baritone).
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 http://www.wegottickets.com/BCS – who also have a direct link on the home page of this website.
MOZART: Mass in C minor K.427 “Great Mass”
The Mass in C minor is by far the most ambitious and elaborate of Mozart’s church works. Hence it came to be known as the ‘Great Mass’. It is full of Mozart’s very individual capacity for tenderness, humanity and compassion.
Mozart began work on the Mass in C minor in the summer of 1782. The Mass was written to honour his wife Constanze. When it was first performed, in Salzburg in October 1783, Constanze herself sang one of the soprano solo parts.
The work was left incomplete – there is only part of the Credo and no Agnus Dei. It is likely that, for the first performance, he filled in the gaps with music from other compositions. Others have tried to complete it – our performance will only be of Mozart’s music.
MOZART: Solemn Vespers K339
The ‘Vesperae Solennes de Confessor’, written in 1780, is a jubilant and finely crafted sequence of the traditional psalm settings for Vespers. Mozart chose to set Psalms 110, 113, 117 and the Magnificat.
The presence of trumpets and drums suggests that the score was intended for use on the eve (or possibly on the day) of a Festum Pallii, an important feast-day in Salzburg.
As you will hear, ‘Solennes’ (solemn) does not, in this context, mean gloomy or dismal! Rather it means ‘celebrated with full liturgical ceremony’ and to the eternal delight of the listener, Mozart’s settings invoke the other original meanings of ‘solemn’- sublime and awe-inspiring.
N.P.
Song on the Tyne
The Rotary Club of Newcastle upon Tyne presents a charity concert for
The Sage Gateshead (Hall One) on Sunday 2nd July 2017 at 7.00 p.m.
David Murray conducts RYTON CHORAL SOCIETY and BISHOPWEARMOUTH CHORAL SOCIETY in a programme of 20th Century Popular Songs which he has specially arranged for 4 part choir, accompanied by a string quintet. You will hear classics by Lennon and McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King and many others. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is a real show stopper!
The choirs will be joined by the TYNE THEATRE STAGE SCHOOL CHOIR – an outstanding local youth choir. Also making a guest appearance will be soprano SALLY HARRISON – who has sung in the West End production of ‘Phantom of the Opera’.
Tickets: £12, available from The Sage Gateshead box office (Call: 0191 4434661) or via any member of the choral societies.
A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster starting at 7.30 p.m., conducted 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 http://www.wegottickets.com/BCS – who also have a direct link on the home page of this website.
‘An English Christmas’ will provide you with the opportunity to indulge in a wide range of Christmas music from Pies, Cakes and Puddings (Edward Watson), Wassail for Five English Folksongs (Vaughan Williams), Four Old English Carols (Holst), and Winter (Vivaldi) through to more modern settings by Bob Chilcott, including his Twelve Days of Christmas.
