Glorious and good-natured music for a summer evening: acclaimed London chamber choir Voxcetera have invited the brilliant Edinburgh ensemble Rudsambee to join them for a joint concert of choral musical, ranging from Tudor anthems to the present day.
The programme includes Samuel Barber and Morten Lauridsen‘s spinetingling arrangements of Sure On This Shining Night; anthems by Biebl, Byrd, Tallis and Weelkes; settings of Shakespeare songs by Shearing; James MacMillan‘s haunting and unmistakeably celtic The Galant Weaver; and folk songs by Reger.
Two great choirs, much great music, one lovely evening.
Rudsambee Company of Singers, conductor Ciara Coleman
Voxcetera, conductor Jane Hopkins
with Adam Johnson, piano
The opening concert in our 2016-2017 season has a sombre feel, commemorating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. Starting with The Banks of Green Willow by George Butterworth, who was killed in action on 5th August 1916, aged 31, this work is complemented by Ronald Corp’s The Somme – A Lament. The mood lifts with the choral arrangement of Serenade to Music by Butterworth’s contemporary, Vaughan Williams and the programme closes with Brahms’s glorious German Requiem.
Mondays @ the Mills: Women and revolution from the bluestockings to Virginia Woolf |
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| 18 September 2017
In an exciting and engaging lecture illustrated by contemporary cartoons, Highgate’s Head of History and Foundation Historian Dr Benjamin Dabby will draw upon his ground-breaking research into the culture of Britain’s ‘long nineteenth century’ to overturn the conventional account that women were confined to the domestic sphere and excluded from public life. In revealing a world in which public debate about the progress of the nation was shaped increasingly by women, he will show how women’s and men’s gendered identities were as hotly debated then as they are today. Dr Dabby’s latest book: Women as Public Moralists in Britain has been published recently by the Royal Historical Society, and copies will be on sale for £30. Talks take place on Mondays at 7pm in the AV Room in the Mills Centre. Refreshments, including wine, are available from 6.30 pm and afterwards. |
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Mondays @ the Mills: Ecuador & the Galápagos |
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| 9 October 2017 Dr Scott Crawford and Dr Ben Weston, Highgate SchoolThe Biology department organises biennial international expeditions for sixth form pupils; past visits include Honduras in 2012 and Madagascar in 2015. This year a party of twenty four pupils visited the Amazonian region of Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands to take part in active conservation research in association with a group of university scientists. In this presentation, the group leaders, Dr Crawford and Dr Weston, will review the expedition and outline the biological significance of the various habitats that the pupils explored.
Talks take place on Mondays at 7pm in the AV Room in the Mills Centre. Refreshments, including wine, are available from 6.30 pm and afterwards. |
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To celebrate the Highgate Heritage Weekend we have a wide range of free history themed children’s activities including:
- Dress up with your parents as one of the colourful characters in Lauderdale House’s history
- Pretend to be royal – take a photo behind our cut out of King Charles II, Nell Gwynn and their baby
- Explore our ‘artefacts’ box – a selection of curious household objects from the past. Guess what they are; what they were used for and how old they might be!
- Go around the House with our family trail
We also have the Arts Award Discover Trail -Free but £6 if you wish to apply for a certificate (latest start 3.30pm).
If you’re arty, love Lauderdale House and aged 6 to 11 you could receive an Arts Award!
This is an opportunity to go around as a family with our Arts Award Trail looking at the House and gardens in a new light, drawing pictures and making observations. It will take about an hour to complete. Children can do it just for fun or if you’d like recognition of all your hard work you can hand it in with the £6 fee and we will send it off and Arts Award so the child receives a certificate to say s/he has completed the first stage in a series of awards recognising their interest in the arts.
Curious about Highgate, its origins, stories, green spaces and buildings? Come in and talk to people who have an interest in and passion for local history. There will be representatives and stalls from the Roman Kilns in Highgate Woods, Camden Tour Guides, HLSI, Lady Gould’s Charity, Highgate School Museum, Friends of Kenwood, Highgate Horticultural Society, Friends of Hornsey Church Tower, Friends of Highgate Library Shepherds Hill, Highgate Society and lots of information about Lauderdale House.
Lauderdale House experts Nick Peacey and Peter Barber OBE join forces with our Heritage Education Officer Maddy Gilliam to share new discoveries about our fascinating former residents.
Friends of the Highgate Roman Kiln – Michael Hammerson and Nick Peacey – will tell you about its remarkable discovery in 1969 in Highgate Woods, how it was lifted out of the ground and divided for safekeeping at Bruce Castle Museum and the hut in Highgate Woods; and their mission to reunite it in its original location. Find out also how local people have tried to recreate the way it worked.
Stay on after for refreshments before the next talk.
Former General Manager of Ham House where Lord Lauderdale made his home when he married its owner Elizabeth Tollemache 2nd Countess of Dysart after the death of his wife and he left Lauderdale House. She will talk about Lauderdale, Elizabeth and Ham House – and Lauderdale’s music.
To celebrate the Highgate Heritage Weekend we have a wide range of free history themed children’s activities including:
- Dress up with your parents as one of the colourful characters in Lauderdale House’s history
- Pretend to be royal – take a photo behind our cut out of King Charles II, Nell Gwynn and their baby
- Explore our ‘artefacts’ box – a selection of curious household objects from the past. Guess what they are; what they were used for and how old they might be!
- Go around the House with our family trail
We also have the Arts Award Discover Trail -Free but £6 if you wish to apply for a certificate (latest start 3.30pm).
If you’re arty, love Lauderdale House and aged 6 to 11 you could receive an Arts Award!
This is an opportunity to go around as a family with our Arts Award Trail looking at the House and gardens in a new light, drawing pictures and making observations. It will take about an hour to complete. Children can do it just for fun or if you’d like recognition of all your hard work you can hand it in with the £6 fee and we will send it off and Arts Award so the child receives a certificate to say s/he has completed the first stage in a series of awards recognising their interest in the arts.
Soundworlds of Lauderdale House from Tudor times to today, a programme specially created for the Lauderdale House Local History Weekend (24 and 25 February), featuring words and music by Henry VIII, Charles I, Purcell, Beaumarchais, Haydn, Verdi, Debussy and Zeigenmeyer.
Insieme – Italian for ‘together’ – share their love of music and words with you through skilful, imaginative and joyful performances.
‘we listen with rapture and watch with glee; a sensational two hours bursting with charm’ Fringe Opera
Insieme, chamber opera ensemble are a new creative residency for 2018 at Lauderdale House featuring 10 talented singers and musicians who combine strings, woodwind, piano, voice and the spoken word:
Johanna Byrne – Artistic Director
Clare Clements – Musical Director
Eleanor Hemmens – Soprano
Brian Parsons – Tenor
Joe Corbett – Baritone
Caoimhe de Paor – Recorders
Mona Kodama – Violin
Guillem Calvo – Violin
Juan Drown- Viola
Frederique Legrand – Cello
Clare Clements – Piano
Johanna Byrne – Spoken Word
2018 marks the centenary of the birth of composer, conductor, author, music lecturer and pianist Leonard Bernstein, whose most famous scores include West Side Story, On the Town, Candide and On the Waterfront.
Commissioned from Bernstein by the Dean of Chichester Cathedral for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival, the Chichester Psalms received its UK premiere on 31st July 1965 and has gone on to become a highly popular staple of choral societies to this day. Consisting of three short movements, the Chichester Psalms is sung in Hebrew.
Our programme of 20th- and 21st-century compositions is completed with choral works by Janacek, Morten Lauridsen and Vaughan Williams.
Rian Evans, Guardian critic and author of Kyffin Williams: The Light and the Dark (2018), discusses the work of Sir Kyffin Williams KBE RA.
8pm (doors open 7.30pm)
Entry £5 on the door (cash or cheque only).
Brochures and books for sale.
Landscape and portrait painter, draughtsman, lecturer, cartoonist and raconteur, Sir Kyffin Williams KBE RA is one of the most famous figures in Welsh art. He spent much of his adult life in Highgate. This talk is part of the Kyffin 100 celebrations in conjunction with Highgate School Museum. Kyffin was senior art master at Highgate School from 1944 to 1973, and he also taught evening classes at the HLSI in the very hall hosting this talk.
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.
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.