Current archive for the Bishopwearmouth Choral Society weblog archives
for the year 2009.
To prepare for our involvement in this year’s NEPAC Last Night of the Proms (to be held at the City Hall, Newcastle on Saturday October 18th 2008) rehearsals have been scheduled for Thurday 9th October (at Brusnwick Methodist Church, Newcastle) and Friday 17th October (at Sunderland Minster). Full details of the concert – prices etc – will be posted in the Events section as soon as possible.
Is your choir planning to perform Bach’s St.John Passion?
We have now added 50 new copies of the Bärenreiter vocal score to our Hire Library, together with the orchestral parts and a conductor’s score. For hire arrangements please see our Hire Library web page, where the scores will be properly listed at the next revision of the site.
| June 7, 2008 | ||
| 7:30 pm |
A concert at Sunderland Minster, featuring a more contemporary programme, in association with the Bishopwearmouth Young Singers and the Virtuoso Jazz Trio.
The programme for this concert will include arrangements of Gershwin songs, a Jerome Kern medley and a sequence of Carpenter numbers. A special feature of the programme will be the contribution provided by the Virtuoso Jazz Trio – which will all make for a very memorable evening.
The Virtuoso Jazz Trio, comprised of George MacDonald – Clarinet, James Birkett – Guitar, and Peter Stuart – Double Bass, was formed in 1994 when George MacDonald invited James Birkett to come around and ‘play some tunes’. Realising that they were on the same wavelength they then asked Peter Stuart to join them. Their first engagement was at the Northern Sinfonia centre in Newcastle, where they played to a packed house. An enthusiastic audience spread the word and a variety of concert and festival engagements have followed with requests for music from Bach to ‘Bird’ (alias Charlie Parker).
George MacDonald spent his youth playing saxophone and clarinet in clubs with dance bands in his native Nova Scotia. At the age of 18 he became interested in classical music and went on to study at the Royal College of Music. He joined the Northern Sinfonia as principal clarinet a few years later, relinquishing that post in 1992.
James Birkett in one of this country’s most acclaimed guitarists. He is director of jazz studies a Newcastle College, has a Doctorate in music and has had two books on jazz guitar published. James plays with a variety of jazz ensembles, regularly undertaking concert, festival and broadcast work.
Peter Stuart, being the North’s leading jazz bass player, is always in demand when a rhythm section is needed to back the best American musicians. He has lived and worked in South Africa, Switzerland and Holland and is on the staff at Newcastle College.
We look forward to seeing you there.
The choir are reminded that rehearsals start again at the Minster on Wednesday 16th April 2008 to prepare for the June concert. Please bring your score of the St.John Passion back, fully tidied up, for return that evening. Look forward to seeing you there.
| October 4, 2008 | ||
| 7:30 pm |
Although David Murray is well known as the Conductor of Bishopwearmouth Choral Society, and for his many other musical activities, he is by no means the only talented member in his family. As part of the 60th Anniversary Season we are fortunate to be able to host a concert featuring David, Jennifer (clarinet) and Christopher Murray (cello). The concert will feature the Trio by Brahms for Clarinet, Cello and Piano and another piece for the same combination by Beethoven – his Op. 11 Trio in Bb.
The concert will be at Sunderland Minster. Tickets are £10.00 or £8.00 for concessions, obtainable by the usual routes.
| March 29, 2008 | ||
| 7:30 pm |
A concert in Sunderland Minster.
Soloists :
Evangelist - Richard Edgar Wilson, Jesus – Philip Smith, Soprano – Jessica Holmes, Alto – Sara Parry, Tenor – Peter Wilman, and Bass – Thomas Asher.
Please note that the date of this concert has been changed from that previously advertised.
Although Passion music was popular in some parts of Germany in the early 18th centuary, it was new to Leipzig. In 1721 Johann Kuhnau had introduced the genre to the city with his St.Mark Passion, but he died a year later; by the time his vacant post of Cantor at the Thomasschule was filled by Bach in 1723, there was no real tradition of Passion music to build on.
It appears that Bach composed five Passion settings, but only two have survived complete. The anonymous text of the St.John Passion is a complilation based in part on the famous Passion poem of B.H.Brockes. The biblical passages from St.John’s Gospel are set as recitative for the Evangelist, for Jesus and for various minor characters, or as choruses with urgent orchestral accompaniments which represent the mob calling for Jesus’s crucifixtion. The arias set free contemplative texts and provide a personal response to the action. The free chorales, using traditional Lutheran words and melodies, offer a communal response and ferquently employ bold, striking harmonies. The whole work, like Bach’s St.Matthew Passion, is framed by two massive choruses.
As this is Ash Wednesday the choir rehearsal will not be able to start until 8.00 p.m. because of a service being held in the Minster (which you are welcome to join starting at 7.00 p.m.). Please enter the Minster via the Restaurant, where you will be able to wait for the service finishing. Due to the limitation in the time available for rehearsal there will be no Coffee Break on the night.
Following the rehearsal where choir members were asked about their preferences, it has been decided that the St.John Passion concert will be moved from the 8th to the 29th of March 2008, and arrangements are now being put into place to enable that to happen (verbal confirmation to be provided to all members at the next rehearsal). It is very much appreciated that this will produce conflicts with other arrangements that some members might have, but the additional rehearsal time will ensure that better justice can be done to the work.
The Young Singers start their Spring term with a rehearsal on Monday 28th January 2008 at 7.15 p.m. at Ewesley Road Methodist Church.
| December 6, 2008 | ||
| 7:30 pm |
A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster. Tickets are £10.00 (£8 concessions) or £5.00 (Gallery).
Conducted by David Murray, this concert features Sarah Redgewick (soprano), Katherine Allen (mezzo), Philip Salmon (tenor) and Christian Immler (bass).
The Mass in B Minor is widely regarded as one of the supreme achievements of “classical” music. The work has been summarised as ‘the consecration of a whole life: started in 1733 for ‘diplomatic’ reasons, it was finished in the very last years of Bach’s life, when he had already gone blind. This monumental work is a synthesis of every stylistic and technical contribution Bach made to music. It is also the most astounding spiritual encounter between the worlds of Catholic glorification and the Lutheran cult of the cross. Scholars have suggested that the Mass in B Minor belongs in the same category as the Art of Fugue, as a summation of Bach’s deep lifelong involvement with musical tradition.
