Arguably the greatest of all Bach’s settings of the Passion, the St Matthew Passion was described by Sir Hubert Parry as “the richest and noblest example of sacred music in existence.”
Matthew Buswell – Christus
Rupert Charlesworth – Evangelist
Soraya Mafi – soprano
Magid El-Bushra – countertenor
Adrian Ward – tenor
Sam Evans – baritone
New London Orchestra
Ronald Corp – conductor
This performance uses the edition in English by the tenor Neil Jenkins and tells the story of Christ’s betrayal, trial and crucifixion.
Tickets are now available to book online at http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/highgatechoral
Please note the early start time and bring a picnic for the 45-minute interval. Wine and water will be on sale.
Bach : St Matthew Passion
Music By: Mozart,Tippet, Parry, Allegri and Bullock.
Featuring singers from: Genesis 16, the National Youth Chamber Choir, Durham University Chamber Choir, St Endellion Festival Chorus, Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music.
This concert is in support of an Operation Wallace Research Trip.
Supporting conservation research projects through Academic Partnership.
Highgate Choral Society’s carol concert is always an event, with plenty of audience participation! Everyone is welcome, especially young children who enjoy this magical time.
Highgate Choral Society‘s annual Christmas concert invites the whole community to join us, with the St Michael’s School junior choir and also the New London Children’s Choir and make merry. Carols and music will include some old favourites as well as some you may not know. It’s just the event to begin the run up to Christmas, so join us!
Get into the Christmas spirit with an evening of sacred music, popular festive songs and traditional carols from acclaimed choir Voxcetera.
Enjoy beautiful choral works spanning 400 years, from anthems by Byrd and Praetorius to contemporary composers including John Rutter, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen and Cecilia McDowall. And there’ll be dazzling arrangements of popular songs and carols such as Winter Wonderland, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Ding Dong Merrily on High.
It isn’t Christmas without a Christmas concert – so why not start the season in beautiful surroundings with joyous, tranquil and uplifting music.
Voxcetera chamber choir sings Gabriel Fauré’s much-loved, moving masterpiece, with soloists Ellie and Jamie Sperling, accompanied by violin, cello, harp and organ.
The concert will also feature Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine; a selection from Gustav Holst’s Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, a collection of ancient Indian sacred texts; and Henry Balfour Gardiner’s dramatic Evening Hymn.
And you’ll hear beautiful music from contemporary composers: the hypnotic Northern Lights by Ola Gjeilo; and Paul Aryes’ sun-drenched love song Quanto sei bella.
Voxcetera is a north London-based chamber choir, directed by its founding conductor Jane Hopkins. Recent activity includes concerts at St Martin-in-the-fields, East Finchley Arts Festival, overseas tours and recording work.
Chamber choir Voxcetera returns to St. Michael’s, Highgate, for a thrilling concert featuring Camille Saint-Saëns’ Requiem and four pieces by one of the best-loved and most distinctive composers of the 20th century, Benjamin Britten.
Saint-Saëns’ compelling and accessibly beautiful 1878 Requiem moves from quiet simplicity to unearthly fortissimi to shake you to the core. Originally scored for a vast orchestra, this version arranged for harp, strings and organ maintains Saint-Saëns’ heightened expression and heartfelt sincerity, but with the intimacy of chamber music. The performance features soprano Angela Henckel who has performed with notable ensembles all over the world, and in UK venues including the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. Martin’s-in-the Fields and Symphony Hall, Birmingham, as well as on Radio 3.
Britten wrote in 1945, “One of my chief aims is to try to restore to the musical setting of the English Language a brilliance, freedom and vitality that have been curiously rare since the death of Purcell”. That vitality is abundant in his extraordinary cantata Rejoice in the Lamb, by turns as mad and as beautiful as the religious poems by Christopher Smart from which Britten took the text. Other short works on the menu are the joyful Jubilate Deo, the dramatic Missa Brevis in D, and Festival Te Deum which sets ethereal Gregorian chant against a progression of shifting organ chords.
A bar will be open before the concert and during the interval.
Benjamin Britten’s much-loved work for voices and harp is the centrepiece of this year’s Christmas concert, which will also feature atmospheric sacred music from across the centuries and popular secular Christmas songs. You’ll also have the opportunity to raise the roof by joining in with a couple of well-known carols!
With Voxcetera chamber choir, Olivia Jageurs (harp), Paul Ayres (organ and piano), conducted by Jane Hopkins.
BAR: open from 7pm selling wine and mince pies.
Voxcetera returns to the beautiful St Michael’s Church with two dazzling works for choir and strings, written nearly 300 years apart.
Vivaldi: Gloria
In a crowded field, little beats this for exuberant Baroque joy. Yet it is full of variety, from the slow and tender “Et in terra pax” to the effervescent “Domine, Fili unigenite”, the choir accompanied throughout by sprightly strings, oboe and trumpet.
Ola Gjeilo: Sunrise Mass
“Most of my favourite composers are film composers working in America today” says the New York-based Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, and this thrilling mass pays tribute to the emotions, adrenaline and sense of wonder of film music. Scored for choir and strings and using traditional Latin texts, the 30-minute piece is strong on melody and rich in harmony, opening with gorgeous shimmering chords that emerge magically out of silence. It’s unmistakably modern, but it’s also in touch with early sacred music including Gregorian chant.
with:
Voxcetera chamber choir
Jane Hopkins, conductor
Ellie Sperling & Bethany Partridge, soloists
String orchestra, oboe, trumpet, organ
Voxcetera is a chamber choir celebrating sacred and secular music from medieval times to the present day under the direction of its founding conductor Jane Hopkins. The choir’s achievements include its popular Christmas concerts; performances with chamber ensembles of Fauré’s Requiem, Saint-Saëns’ Requiem and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, at St Michael’s Highgate; tours to Germany and Ireland; performances at St Martin-in-the-Fields, St. John Smith Square, St. Stephen Walbrook and East Finchley Arts Festival; appearances at the Science Museum, British Library and the Southbank Centre; and a variety of recording work.