Category: Concerts page

August 2014 | Services at Portsmouth Cathedral

Services at Portsmouth Cathedral

Director Louisa Denby; Organ Ian Tindale

2014 Cathedral group photo

Eucharist

Victoria – Jesu, dulcis memoria

Haydn – Little Organ Mass (solo Catherine White)

Lassus – Ave verum corpus

Evensong

Walford Davies – Blessed are the pure in heart

Clucas Responses

Brewer – Magnificat & Nunc dimittis in D

Bairstow – Lord, I call upon thee

 

Peter Leonard, Residentiary Canon at Portsmouth Cathedral

August 2014 | Outreach

The Vox Cantab minibus

Outreach Activities at The Rowans’ Hospice & Steep House Nursing Home, Hampshire,
plus a private home visit

A small number of us visited the Rowans’ Hospice, Waterlooville, and Steep House Nursing Home, in order to entertain the residents with a varied selection of music. 

We also visited our 94-year-old friend in his home, where we were treated to a sumptuous tea and a glimpse of a ‘Great Bible,’ dating from the 16th Century.

Repertoire included:

The Rowans Hospice, Waterlooville, Hampshire, August 2014
The Rowans Hospice, Waterlooville, Hampshire, August 2014

Tallis – If ye love me
Vautor – Sweet Suffolk Owl
Holst – Swansea Town
Trad. Botswanan, arr. L’Estrange – Jesu ukukhanya
Handel, arr. Gritton – Three-minute Messiah
Carter/Hudson, arr. Sund – Goodnight sweetheart

Looking at a copy of Henry VIII's Great Bible
Looking at a copy of Henry VIII’s Great Bible

 

August 2014 | Music for the Close of the Day

‘Music for the Close of the Day’, Holy Trinity Church, Privett, Hampshire
in aid of The Churches Conservation Trust

Director Louisa Denby

Privett 2014
Privett 2014

Beginning with Shepherd’s meditative setting of words from the ancient monastic Office of Compline, and ending with a rousing rendition of Goodnight, Sweetheart, this was a mixed and varied concert which kept the appreciative audience entertained!

August 2014 | Evensong at East Meon

By day two of our 2014 Summer Tour, the number of singers had swelled to eight. We travelled to All Saints’, East Meon, for a service of Choral Evensong. After rehearsal, we congregated in the North Aisle of the church, giving us plenty of time to admire the Millennium Embroidery before the service began, heralded by the bell.

All of the service was sung unaccompanied (music included Give almes of thy goods – Tye, and Arnold’s Evening Service in A), and we particularly enjoyed the anthem, Byrd’s Justorum Animae, which matched the understated grandeur of the church.

Afterwards we were treated to drinks and nibbles with the East Meon congregation.

 

The smart Vox Cantab ties (and their men)
The gentlemen of the Choir
The Girls
The girls have their priorities right!

August 2014 | ‘Essentially English’

Vox Cantab in Chalton
Vox Cantab rehearsing for their one-to-a-part Chalton concert
Vox Cantab rehearsing for their one-to-a-part Chalton concert

The first day of our 2014 Summer Tour saw five members of the Choir give a concert of ‘Essentially English’ music at St Michael & All Angels, Chalton, Hampshire.

Soprano Catherine White, Louisa Dawes; Alto Louisa Denby;
Tenor Dean Parker; Bass Frank Lee

Programme

Tye – Give almes of thy goods

Tallis – If ye love me

Morley – Sing we, and chant it

Cornysh – Ah, Robyn

Stanford – When Mary thro’ the garden went

Elgar – As torrents in summer

Wood – Full fathom five

Wood – Oculi omnium

Holst – Swansea Town

Sullivan – The long day closes

English Trad., arr. Gritton – Country Gardens

Trad. Botswanan, arr. L’Estrange – Jesu ukukhanya

Lloyd-Webber – Close every door

Handel, arr. Gritton – Three-minute Messiah

February 2014 | ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’

‘Old Wine in New Bottles’
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge & Selwyn College Music Society, Cambridge

Director Louisa Denby; Piano Nadanai Laohakunakorn

It was lovely to bring this programme of modern arrangements of traditional folk songs to two venues in Cambridge. Music included Katy Cooper’s arrangement of the American song Circle March, Whittaker’s take on English folk song Bobby Shaftoe, and other recent arrangements of music from the UK, North America, and further afield.

September 2013 | Howells’ Requiem

Howells’ Requiem and other music from around the British Isles
Holy Trinity Church, Privett, Hampshire
in aid of the Churches Conservation Trust

Conductor Jonathan Willcocks

Programme

Vaughan Williams – Selection from Five English Folksongs
Holst – Selection from Six Choral Folk Songs
Britten – Flower Songs Op. 47
MacMillan – Selection from The Strathclyde Motets
Stanford – Three Latin Motets
Howells – Requiem
Holst – Nunc dimittis
Willcocks – Lacrymosa

howells2

August 2013 | Residency at St Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire

Residency at St Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire
Conductor Louisa Denby; Organ Tim Parsons

tim
Wrong gate, Tim!

Service repertoire

Ayleward Responses
Leighton Responses
Rose Responses
Wood – Evening Service No. 2 in Eb
Stanford – Magnificat & Nunc dimittis in C
Gibbons – Short Service
Howells – St Paul’s Evening Service
Britten – Te deum
Walton – Jubilate Deo
Mendelssohn – O for the wings of a dove
Parry – Blest Pair of Sirens
Stanford – Justorum anime
Joubert – O Lord, the maker of al thing
Balfour Gardiner – Evening Hymntrefin-welcome-board

Concert repertoire
Finnish trad. – Alleloila
Stanford – Beati quorum via
MacMillan – O Radiant Dawn
Holst – Nunc dimittis
Vaughan Williams – Selection from Five Choral Folksongs
Simmons – Flying
Aboriginal – Bele mama
Greene – O Clap your Hands
Pearsall – Lay a Garland
Morley – My Bonny Lass
Britten – The Evening Primrose
Harris – Faire is the Heaven
Trad. – One more time

The residency included workshops led by nationally-renowned animateur and vocal leader Amy Bebbington, and the Choir gave a community concert in the Chapel in Trefin Village, in order to raise funds for its continued refurbishment and to demonstrate its potential as a venue for the Arts.

 

May 2013 | From Lent to Pentecost

‘From Lent to Pentecost’ – a Sequence of Renaissance Polyphony
St Stephen’s Church, Rochester Row, Westminster

Director Louisa Denby

Programme

Byrd – Miserere mei
Palestrina – Scapulis suis
Victoria – O vos omnes
Victoria – Pueri Hebraeorum
Marenzio – O rex gloriae
Byrd – Ave verum
Morley – Eheu sustulerunt
Philips – Tristitia vestra
Byrd – Viri Galilei
Philips – Ascendit Deus
Palestrina – Confirma hoc Deus
Byrd – Non vos relinquam orphanos
Palestrina – Alma redepemtoris mater