High Cross Organ Recitals
www.highcrosscamberley.co.uk/organ-recital
Epworth Choir
November 9, 2024
Fauré’s Requiem
St Mary of Bethany Church
Mount Hermon Road, Woking GU22 7UH
www.highcrosscamberley.co.uk/organ-recital
St Mary of Bethany Church
Mount Hermon Road, Woking GU22 7UH
Surrey Heath Singers gave a delightful concert on Saturday evening, April 1, 2023, at St Peter’s Church in Frimley.
The concert opened with a performance of William Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus. This was followed by Byrd’s Mass for 4 Voices. This beautiful piece of Renaissance polyphony was composed in a time of religious turmoil in England.
The second half featured John Stainer’s The Crucifixion. This is a powerful and moving work, and the Surrey Heath Singers did a wonderful job of bringing it to life. The choir sang with precision and clarity, and the soloists were all excellent.
Here are some reviews from audience members:
SHS staged their summer concert, 100 Years of American Musical Theatre, on Saturday, July 9th at High Cross, Camberley. The programme included compilations from My Fair Lady, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, West Side Story, Oklahoma and much more. Ed Bonner conducted and Geoff Tuson accompanied. Geoff also played 3 solos, including the beautiful, Send in the Clowns, from A Little Night Music.
Below are some comments from audience members:
I was just about to say how much I enjoyed the concert. The whole choir looked good and sounded excellent. The 2 extra male singers were superb and added to the overall enjoyment. I really wanted to be up there with you as it was hard not to join in the singing. The combination of voices sounded lovely. I was so pleased to be there and it was lovely to see you all. The drink and chatter afterwards were the icing on the cake.
I had some interesting feedback from one of our members who was in the audience. When I asked for his unvarnished opinion, he said that the timing and tempo of the pieces were excellent and enjoyable and set the atmosphere. He said the basses and tenors were quite prominent and benefited from the contribution of Marcello Palazzo (Tenor) and Rob Jones (Bass). The sopranos found hitting the perfect pitch challenging at times (I think that might have been because of the heat).
Another audience member said the overall impact was joyful and the West Side Story arrangement was the highlight partly because it reminded her of the contemporary Spielberg film production which sticks to the original musical score.
I received many compliments from various members of the audience who all thought it was a wonderful, foot-tapping concert, evoking memories of the past. Many loved knowing the words in their heads.
Some friends of ours, who are members of another choir, said that the technical standard of our singing was high; the quality seemed even better with smaller numbers. Others commented on the programme itself, the content providing suitable variety and balance. Geoff’s solos went down a treat.
“…uplifting, just what the doctor ordered …”
“…wonderful programme, more please…”
“…the choir did so well in all that heat…”
“… I just wanted to sing along …”
After the Christmas Concert, some members of the choir went out in the freezing weather to support local charities.
On Monday we sang carols at the Meadows in support of Step by Step, a charity working to prevent homelessness for young people.
Surrey Heath Singers supported the Frimhurst Enterprise Choir and Whole Notes Community Choir
at the Frimhurst Festival on June 25th, 2022. We were supported by The Caws Brothers.
The Platinum Jubilee celebration event at Frimhurst was fantastic and it was a privilege for us to sing Dig Deep and Power of Music with Frimhurst choir and Wholenotes, plus our concert music. The jazz group was great and we enjoyed hearing the ukulele players too, plus separate items from Wholenotes and Frimhurst choirs.
Here are some photographs of Surrey Heath Singers
Youtube Video
courtesy of Alan Meeks
abc
The BBC Singers have announced the appointment of Sofi Jeannin as their new Chief Conductor, taking up her position in July 2018.
Sofi Jeannin was Music Director at the Surrey Heath Choral Society before returning to Paris in 2008 to become the Music Director of La Maîtrise de Radio France.
Click here to see the announcement from the BBC
You may recall my ranting on about the marking up that has to be removed at ‘rubbing-out parties’. The problem is exacerbated by the number of old mark-ups that remain in scores from previous users. Unfortunately, SHS is responsible for the state of the scores when they are returned to the lenders.
The picture here is a real example of a returned score, admittedly an extreme one, but not the only such page found! I don’t know if this is ‘old’ or ‘new’ marking up; the point is that SHS, as the last borrower, could be charged to remove it!
There are a number of ways you can help:
Your help will save hours and hours of tedious work and Handling and Care of Scores will be greatly appreciated.
SHS Librarian
It is quite easy to fill in PDF forms. In Windows, you can use Adobe’s Acrobat DC application. Mac users will find a Mac version of the Acrobat application. Other Fill & Sign applications are available.
Adobe has a Fill and Sign application for Android and Apple tablets and phones.