September 2025 sees us start work on our next season's music. Here's the exciting programme of events:
Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, our 22nd November concert at Southwell Minster will be devoted to a theme of remembrance, with the centre-piece the lesser-known but rather wonderful setting of the Requiem by Saint-Saens. Originally scored for a large symphony orchestra, four soloists and choir, we will be using a slightly reduced orchestration by the innovative German publishing house, Carus. In the second half of the concert, we will sing a motet by Cecilia McDowall that combines the ancient church text of Ave Maris Stella with extracts from the psalms. The mighty Poulenc Organ Concerto will follow before the concert concludes with a message of peace and reassurance in Fauré’s well-loved Cantique de Jean Racine. The music will be interspersed with appropriate poetry read by the cathedral’s Canon Missioner, Amanda Lees.
Carols at St Peter’s on 13th December, led by Edward Turner our accompanist, and then in the Spring, back at St Mary’s for another collaboration with the church’s splendid Children’s Choir, who will join us to sing Handel’s Zadok the Priest as well as his Foundling Hospital Anthem Blessed are they that considereth the poor – a work that concludes with the Hallelujah chorus from Messiah. In the second half, the Bach Choir (and Players, of course) will present Bach’s fabulous Cantata No. 21, Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis.
Then in the Summer, a real treat: we shall we welcoming His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts to St Mary’s on 20th June to join us for a feast of Venetian polychoral repertoire by Gabrieli and his contemporaries.
We hope you can join us!