Organs for the Organ
Yes, you read that right: Organs for the organ!
Our June 2024 concert is all about organs: both corporeal ones and musical ones! Our friends at English Martyrs church are fundraising to restore their lovely Holdich organ and they’ve invited us to come and perform a choral concert to support their campaign. So we thought we’d sing about hearts, eyes, heads, hands and other bodily organs. Although we tried to impose a more elevated concert name, Organs for the organ has stuck… and it seems to make people smile!
So, come and hear us perform another diverse concert of choral music from Monteverdi and Vaughan Williams to Rutter and Bernstein. There are choral classics (Beatus Vir, Let all mortal flesh) and popular arrangements (Smoke get in your eyes, Brown eyed girl and Heart and soul) so everyone will find something to enjoy! Louise Rapple Moore will direct us in her usual energetic style and the incomparable Simon Dinsdale will accompany us.
The centrepiece of our concert is Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia - a rich and exciting setting of WH Auden’s lyrical poem in homage to Cecilia as patron saint of music and musicians, who built "an organ to enlarge her prayer.” Following which, “notes tremendous from her great engine thundered out on the Roman air” - we hope we’ll make a spine-tingling sound that does justice to these excellent words!
There will be interval refreshments, there is plenty of on-site parking and it’s easy to reach English Martyrs church by road or by bus. The concert starts at 7:30pm and will be finished by 9:30pm. All you have to do is commit to coming along - buy your tickets now! Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram too - we’ll be sharing more updates about the concert and revealing the full programme as it gets closer!
