Exeter Chamber Choir

RECENT CONCERTS

St Mary Arches, Exeter, 7.30pm on Tuesday 18th December

Our Christmas concert for this year had a Spanish flavour, centred on Navidad Nuestra by Argentinian composer, Ariel Ramirez. Written in 1964, this series of six songs tells the Nativity story using the distinctive rhythms of regional Spanish-American music. We also sang several traditional carols from Spain and Catalonia. Soloists on guitar (Steve Gordon) and percussion (Edward Scull) joined the choir for the Ramirez as well as for some of the other carols. They also performed alone. The rest of the programme included carols for everyone to join in and pieces for just the choir. We aimed to offer an evening of cheerful Christmas music with a few moments of reflection.

Buckfast Abbey, 7.30pm on Thursday 20th December

We were very pleased to be back at Buckfast Abbey once again for our Christmas carol service. There were some carols for everyone to join in and others for just the choir. After beginning with a reflection on the wonder of the Christmas story in Lauridsen’s O magnum mysterium, the music we chose focused on the Virgin Mary, Jesus’s birth and the joy of Christmas.

Saturday 29th September, 2007.

MASS IN B MINOR - J. S. BACH

with DEVON BAROQUE - Leader Margaret Faultless

SOLOISTS:

Rebecca Yates Soprano 1
Tina Guthrie Soprano 2
Frances Bourne Alto
Nicholas Yates Tenor
Thomas Guthrie Bass

A NOTE FROM ANDREW DALDORPH - MUSICAL DIRECTOR OF EXETER CHAMBER CHIOIR

It is always a pleasure to be involved with a performance of the B Minor Mass. It is a work which provokes all kinds of emotions and can leave one refreshed but exhausted at the same time.

We were delighted to be joined by five wonderful soloists for this evening and to continue the choir’s collaboration with the stylistic playing of the Devon Baroque orchestra. Their leader, Maggie Faultless, gave a virtuoso performance of the violin obligato solo in the Laudamus te.

We aimed for a fresh and lively performance, highlighting the contrast of the jazzy rhythms, but still leaving time to reflect and indulge from time to time.

This concert provided a welcome return for the Choir to Exeter Cathedral following our successful Monteverdi Vespers project in February 2005 and we thank the Dean and Chapter for having had the opportunity to perform such a mighty work in this perfect setting.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THIS PERFORMANCE

What a delightful evening - the first half was excellent and the second was even better - the warmth of the audience’s response showed how much they had enjoyed the performance.

The Choir seemed a little tentative at first, but the Kyrie and the Gloria were excellent and the Domine Deus was delightful - one of the highlights of the concert.

All the soloists were very experienced and accomplished. Frances Bourne’s voice is exceptional.

Devon Baroque are a most professional orchestra, sympathetic to the choir and the soloists. The violin solo in the Laudamus Te performed by Margaret Faultless was wonderful.

Andrew Daldorph displayed excellent control of the choir, soloists and orchestra, with whom he showed great empathy - he must be delighted with the results of his efforts.

The choir really exploited the dance rhythms of Bach’s music. I have not experienced as vibrant a performance of the B Minor as this before, and can’t wait to hear it performed this way again. It was fantastic.

Exeter Chamber Choir sang with a light touch where the music required it yet were equally capable of a large sound if necessary. Their smaller forces provided a flexibility denied to larger choral societies.

The Exeter Chamber Choir's presentation of the Bach Mass in B Minor surpassed all our expectations. It was brilliant! Both the choir and the very talented soloists, all under the direction of Andrew Daldorph, gave the large audience an evening of pure delight - an evening to be remembered.

If I were to be asked for a criticism, I would only say that whereas the evening opened with a warm welcome to both choir and soloists, it was a pity that no-one thought to express the heartfelt thanks of the audience at the conclusion of the concert.

EXETER CHAMBER CHOIR LENT MUSIC

Saturday March 24th 2007 At the parish church of St Mary, St Marychurch, Torquay

Exeter Chamber Choir performed a concert of unaccompanied music for the Lent season, at St Marychurch... an unusual concert featururing both the choir as a whole, as a double choir, and also in various groups of small individual choirs.

Amongst the items in the programme, the choir performed the Thomas Tallis Spem in alium habui, a wonderful motet for 40 voices singing 40 different lines of music. Thomas Tallis, an English composer during the Renaissance Period ( 1400 – 1600), spanned the reigns of four monarchs. Henry V111 , Edward V1, Mary and Elizabeth 1. For this concert, it was performed in the round.

Music by J.S. Bach - Motet in E minor Jesu, meine Freude BWV 227. The Motets were all written between 1723 and 1725 for St Thomas Church, Leipzig. This is the longest and most complex, musically of the six, and was written for the funeral of Johanna Maria Keisin.

Robert Carver's O Bone Jesu, written in the early 1520’s, and regarded as a Renaissance masterpiece –unlike most British composers of that time, Robert Carver drew his influence from Europe, and is Scotland’s greatest composer of the 16th Century.

As with the first half of this concert, which began with Christus Vincit by the contemporary composer Macmillan, the second began with another contemporary wotk, Hymn to the Mother of God by John Taverner.

The juxtaposition of old and new will reflect the difficult and and differing emotional responses to the Lenten textx at the heart of these works.
The concert moves from Rennaissance music, through the works by Byrd, Victoria, Purcell, Lotti and Britten, with the choir performing in groups ranging from solo voice plainchant, then going into ever larger groups up to 40 voice parts, with different voice groups singing from different parts of the church.

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Mass in G minor for soloists and double chorus

- This beautiful and pastoral work was written in 1921 when Vaughan Williams had written such works as the Lark Ascending and his Pastoral Symphony.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Masterworks of the Russian Orthodox Church

- Tchaikovsky set many sections of the Liturgy, the collection performed are those of most musical interest in the context of a concert, with the addition of two choruses.

Edward Grieg - Ave maris stella

• Grieg’s beautiful and sincere vesper hymn setting of the Ave maris stella.

Andrew Daldorph - The Lenten Spring -a Motet for 8 part unaccompanied choir

The Lentern Spring - commissioned by VOCE ( The Voices of Cambridge Ensemble) for a concert at Weston nr.Cambridge on 11th March 2006
"view manuscript"
For further information and commissions please contact Andrew Daldorph at daldorph@btinternet.com

In addition, works by Casals and Lotti , and music for organ performed by Andrew Daldorph.