Vocal Workshop on September 11, 2010

This workshop is now full.

The vocal workshop on September 11th will be led by Stuart Barr. Stuart is a singing coach and musical director, working among other places at the Royal Academy of Music. His most recent challenge was as Chorus Master for the special BBC Prom which celebrated Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday. In June, BBC Radio 3, in The Choir, featured the work Stuart has been doing to help choirs change their sound to suit the music. You can read more about him on his website, www.stuartbarr.net.

Stuart will be assisted by our own conductor, Sam Gardner.

The workshop will be held in the relaxing environment of The Barn, Westfield Farm, Sherriff Hutton  YO60 6QQ. Tea and coffee will be available from 10.30, so that we can start promptly at 11.00.

Stuart and Sam have planned the programme as follows:

11.00 Welcome

11.05 Building the sound (Stuart Barr)

A whistle-stop tour around the basics of the voice. Stuart will look at why warming up is important, how it can be done efficiently and then provide tips for improving technique, including: airflow, efficient voicing, breathing, registers (larynx tilting), resonance, freeing tongue/jaw tension & posture.

12.30 Lunch – this will be Bring and Share

1.30 Singing with style (Stuart Barr)

Using the latest voice science research, Stuart will show how to change vocal colours to suit the music, concentrating on the Classical and Renaissance periods.

2.30 Break – tea and coffee

3.00 Performing Renaissance music (Sam Gardner)

A short introduction to performing music of the Renaissance; focusing on repertoire from the last concert. Identifying the techniques composers were using to draw attention to certain areas of the music and how our performance could reflect this.

3.30 Ensemble performance

An opportunity for the singers to split into groups and prepare their own performance of the day’s music, with advice and guidance available from Stuart and Sam.

4.30 Performance

Each group performs to each other with a short introduction from each about the musical decisions they made.

5.00 Finish

Concert: 15 May 2010 in York

Saturday 15 May 2010

Church of St Chad on the Knavesmire, York, YO23 1EY at  7.30pm

Tickets £7. They are available from 01423-508389 and 01904 424411.

Refreshments will be available.

Planned programme includes:

• Bogoroditse Dyevo (Rachmaninov)
• Sicut cervus (Palestrina)
• Cantate Domino (Monteverdi)
• When David heard (Tomkins)
• Hear my Prayer (Purcell)
• Rejoice in the Lord alway (Purcell)
• Hosanna to the Son of David (Gibbons)
• Lord, thou hast been our refuge (Vaughan Williams)
• O taste and see (Vaughan Williams)
• My spirit sang all day (Finzi)
• Cantique de Jean Racine (Faure)

There are various ways of getting to the church, but for anyone that doesn’t know York, this is a straightforward way from A59.

• Turn right onto York Outer Ring Road A1237
• Cross over next roundabout [Wetherby Road].
• Take second exit at next roundabout, signposted  Woodthorpe.
• Continue on this road, crossing a mini roundabout taking you across railway line. Must be approx  1-2 miles.
• At next big roundabout turn left onto A1036, signposted York. This is called Tadcaster Road.
• Continue on Tadcaster Road towards York, over traffic lights [by St Edwards Church].
• Racecourse is on your Right. At end of Racecourse turn right by white fencing. There is a right turn arrow for you, but the turning is not particularly clear. There are brown signs to Racecourse.
• Racecourse is now on your right with Little Knavesmire [more green space] on your left.
• There is a left bend in road, Terrys factory is visible, and after bend St Chad’s is on left after a few hundred yards.
• Park in car park or on road.

St Chads was built of red brick in 1920’s so don’t be looking out for stone towers or spires!!

{If coming down A19 turn right onto York Outer Ring Road, go over two roundabouts and proceed as above].

6 February 2010: St Felix Church, Felixkirk

Saturday 6 February 2010

Programme:

• Descendi in Ortum Meum (Dunstable)
• Ascendit Deus (Phillips)
• Laudibus in Sanctis (Byrd)
• Thou knowest Lord (Purcell)
• O Rex Gloriae (Palestrina)
• Super flumina Babylonis (Palestrina)
• O Nata Lux (Tallis)
• (Interval)
• Jubilate Deo (Mozart)
• God so loved the world (Stainer)
• My soul, there is a country (Parry)
• Sing ye praises to our King (Copland)
• Beati quorum via (Stanford)
• Christus factus est (Bruckner)
• Locus iste (Bruckner)

The concert will start at 7.30 pm.

Unfortunately Peter Gibson will not be able to give the talk previously advertised.

St Mary’s Church Masham 10/10/2009

The programme was:

• Handel – Coronation Anthem No. 3 – The King shall rejoice
• Tallis – If ye love me
• Howells – Like as the hart
• Bainton  – And I saw a new heaven
• Britten – Rejoice in the Lamb
• Pearsall – Who shall win my lady fair
• Pearsall – Why do the roses
• Vaughan Williams – Silence and Music
• Stanford – Seven Partsongs

Of Psalm and Song

Our programme includes great works by Handel and Britten, Charles Villiers Stanford provides the thread which connects much of the music we present. Stanford brought back into performance forgotten works by Purcell and Handel, and he taught composition to Herbert Howells, Edgar Bainton and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams, in turn, was one of Britten’s teachers.

We open with The King shall rejoice, one of the anthems Handel wrote for the coronation of George II in 1727. The first performance was not a great success: indeed the archbishop wrote on his programme “The Anthem in Confusion: All irregular in the Music”, but since then it has become a great favorite.

The beautiful anthem If ye love Me, by Thomas Tallis establishes a more reflective mood, which is developed further by Herbert Howells setting of verses from Psalm 42: Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks. This is one of a set of four anthems written in 1941 in time of war. Howells jokingly referred to himself as the reincarnation of a Tudor-era church composer, but this work contributed to the development of the modern Anglican anthem tradition.

Edgar Bainton’s most famous anthem And I saw a new heaven was written some thirteen years earlier, while Bainton was Principal of the Newcastle Conservatory of Music. It is a setting of words from the Book of Revelation.

The first part of the programme ends with Britten’s cantata Rejoice in the Lamb. The words are taken from a long eighteenth-century poem written by Christopher Smart. The poet was in an asylum at the time, and the words tread a fine line between genius and madness.

The second part of the concert opens with two nineteenth-century madrigals written by Robert Pearsall, a self-taught composer who had a long association with the Bristol Madrigal Society. We then move forward in time to 1953. Silence & Music was Vaughan Williams’ contribution to A Garland for the Queen, a song-cycle written by ten British composers to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II. The words are from a poem by RVW’s second wife, Ursula, and the score is inscribed “To the memory of Charles Villiers Stanford, and his Blue Bird”.

So it is fitting that we conclude with seven part-songs by Stanford, including The Blue Bird, set to a poem by Mary Coleridge. The set includes an Easter anthem also set to words by Mary Coleridge, When Mary through the garden went. She also provided the words for The Haven and Chillingham. We start on a lighter note with three Elizabethan Pastorals.

In addition to his work as an organist and conductor, Stanford was a prolific composer. He wrote seven symphonies, seven operas and a wide variety of chamber music. On a smaller scale, he was indeed a master both of psalm and of song.

St Mark’s Harrogate 16/5/2009

What:	European Gems
When:	Saturday, May 16, 2009 7:30 PM
Where:	St Mark’s Church Leeds Road Harrogate, North Yorkshire HG2 8AY

Glorious choral music from Austria, Germany and France, in conjunction with BBC Radio 3 Mendelssohn Festival.

Two Choral Works – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47)

* Jauchzet dem Herrn
* Hear my Prayer

Mass in G – Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

Three Choral Works – Anton Bruckner (1824-96)

* Christus factus est
* Locus iste
* Ave Maria

Cantique de Jean Racine – Gabriel Faurė (1845-1924)

Jesu, meine Freude – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Directions to St Mark’s are here.

‘Beauty of tone, clear words and good phrasing were a constant feature of the St Paulinus Singers’

Valentine’s Day – St John’s Sharow

If ye love me – Tallis
Blessed be the God and Father – Wesley
God so loved the world – Stainer
Greater love hath no man – Ireland
My love dwelt in a northern land – Parry
Madrigali – Lauridsen
Quando son piu lontan
Lo Piango
Luci Serene e Chiare
English Folksongs – Vaughan Williams
The dark eyed sailor
The Springtime of the year
Just as the tide was flowing
The Lover’s Ghost

April is in my mistresse face – Morley
Lady when I behold – Wilbye
Leave alas this tormenting – Morley
My bonny lass she smileth – Morley
Though Philomena lost her love – Morley
It was a lover and his lass – Morley

Interval

Excerpts from Dido and Aeneas – Purcell

Entente Cordiale – St James Church Birstwith

Requiem – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Interval
Rejoice in the Lord alway – Henry Purcell (1659-95)
The Spirit of the Lord – Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
God so Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901)
My spirit sang all day – Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
The Turtle Dove – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Thule, the Period of Cosmographie – Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)
My bonny lass she smileth – Thomas Morley (1557-1602)
See, see the Shepherd’s Queen – Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
Sing we at pleasure – Thomas Weelkes

Summer Serenade – Harrogate Road Methodist Church

Locus Iste – Anton Bruckner (1824-96)
Os justi meditabitur – Anton Bruckner
Sleep – Eric Whitacre (b. 1970)
Steal Away – Michael Tippett (1905-98)
Go down Moses – Michael Tippett
Deep River – Michael Tippett
Music, When Soft Voices Die – Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
The Turtle Dove – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The Shower – Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
As Torrents in Summer – Edward Elgar
Now is the Month of Maying – Thomas Morley (c. 1557-1602)
April is in my Mistress’ Face – Thomas Morley
As Vesta was from Latmos Hill Descending – Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)
Weep, O Mine Eyes – John Bennett (c. 1575-1614)
The Silver Swan – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Shenandoah – arr. James Erb (b. 1926)
Over the Rainbow – arr. Guy Turner
Autumn Leaves – arr. Andrew Carter
Summertime – arr. Roderick Williams

Miserere – All Saints Ripley

If ye love me – Tallis
Hear my prayer – Henry Purcell
God so loved the world – John Stainer
Hosanna to the Son of David – Gibbons
Crucifixus – Antonio Lotti
O lord the maker of all things – Joubert
Hear my prayer – Mendelssohn
Ubi Caritas – Maurice Duruflé
Lord, let me know mine end – Maurice Greene
The Beatitudes – Pärt
Miserere – Allegri
O taste and see – Ralph Vaughan Williams
Salvator Mundi – Thomas Tallis
Hosanna to the Son of David – Weelkes