Photos from 12 May

Pictures of the latest concert, Dies Natalis, with Greg Tassell singing and Anthony Zerpa-Falcon at the piano.

Dies Natalis

Saturday 12 May, 7:30pm
Dies Natalis: Music of the English Springtime
Greg Tassell, tenor
Anthony Zerpa-Falcon, piano
String orchestra led by Jane Gomm

Greg Tassell is a past winner of the John Kerr Award for English Song, and is quickly coming to nationwide prominence as an expert interpreter of English music. In this concert, we are very excited to be bringing Greg together with other well-known local artists for the first time.

The main work is the secular cantata Dies Natalis by the 20th century English composer Gerald Finzi, for tenor soloist and string orchestra. This is a tremendously evocative setting of texts by Thomas Traherne about the wonder of the natural world and the innocence of youth. Writing in the seventeenth century, Traherne was one of the second generation of 'Metaphysical' poets, after the better-known George Herbert and John Donne. His most famous lines seem to strike a chord with everyone who reads them, and are given special prominence in Finzi's setting: "I was a stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys; my knowledge was divine. I was entertain'd like an angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory... The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reap'd nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting."

Tickets for this concert are just £12 on the door, but you can also gain a discount by booking in advance. Simply email kcmconcerts@blueyonder.co.uk or visit Hall's Bookshop, next to the church.

Bach at King Charles, 5 May

There is nothing like programming music by Bach for focusing the attention. He provides I think the ultimate challenge for musicians. It is impossible to feel that the music has entirely been done justice in performance, but striving to do so is immensely rewarding.

Saturday 5 May, 7:30pm: The Decimus Consort of Voices
Programme:
- J S Bach (attrib) "Ich lasse dich nicht", "O Jesu Christ, meins lebens Licht" and "Komm, Jesu, Komm"
- H Shütz, from Kliene geistliche Konzerte
- F Cavalli "Salve Regina"
- D Buxtehude "Quaemadmodum sicut cervus"
- G F Handel, arias from Ottone and L'Allegro

Kate Semmens, Caroline Preston Bell (sopranos)
Fergus McLusky, Toby Gee (altos)
Neil Thornton, Alex Churchill, Paul Bentley (tenors)
Keith Bryant, Toby Barrett (basses)
Rupert Preston Bell (director)
with Duncan Aspden (organ)

Tickets: in advance just £10 (£12 on the door). To book in advance, call in at Hall's Bookshop or email kcmconcerts@blueyonder.co.uk

The next concert is Dies Natalis on 12 May, with Greg Tassell, Anthony Zerpa-Falcon and string orchestra led by Jane Gomm.

Concerts in May

Here are advance details about our two concerts in May, 2012.

Saturday 5 May, 7:30pm

J S Bach: Komm, Jesu, Komm

The Decimus Consort of Voices perform some exciting solo and ensemble repertoire of the Baroque period, including one of Bach's challanging double-choir motets.

Saturday 12 May, 7:30pm

Dies Natalis: music of the English springtime

Greg Tassell (tenor) sings the wonderful song cycle by Gerald Finzi, accompanied by a string orchestra (leader, Jane Gomm). He will also be accompanied by Anthony Zerpa-Falcon in some English songs.

Tickets for each concert are available from kcmconcerts@blueyonder.co.uk or from 01892 547835, at £10 if purchased in advance and £12 on the door.

Thanks for a wonderful concert

Here are some pictures from the 'From Venice to Dresden' concert on 18 March, which was enthusiastically received by the audience.

"Congratulations on the concert last Sunday- an amazingly exciting and vibrant ensemble, - thoroughly enjoyable."

"What a wonderful concert you and your group gave us. Beautiful singing and playing. The whole thing was fantastic."

Many thanks to everyone who attended, participated, and helped behind the scenes, including Hall's Bookshop and Il Vesuvio restaurant!

From Venice to Dresden: Gabrieli and Schütz on 18 March

Masterworks of the Colossal Baroque
The Cambridge Taverner Choir, director Owen Rees
Sunday 18 March, at 7:30


Programme includes:
Giovanni Gabrieli: Jubilate Deo | O magnum mysterium | O Jesu mi dulcissime | In ecclesiis | Hodie completi sunt
Heinrich Schütz: O bone Jesu | Ach Herr, du schöpfer | Deutsches Magnificat | Herr wenn ich | Selig sind die toten | Singet dem herrn


In 1609-12 the young Heinrich Schütz stayed in Venice to study with one of Europe's most famous musicians, Giovanni Gabrieli, and to learn the modern Italian styles of composition with him. Schütz went on to become the principal composer of sacred music in these expressive Baroque styles in northern Europe.
For this concert, the choir will be joined by I Musici Della Contessa, a small instrumental ensemble comprising cornetts, sackbuts, curtal and continuo.


Tickets: £12 (£10 if booked in advance) available from Hall's Bookshop, Chapel Place or email kcmconcerts@blueyonder.co.uk

Owen Rees
Owen Rees is Fellow and Director of Music at The Queen’s College, Oxford. Through his work as director of the Cambridge Taverner Choir, Contrapunctus, and The Queen's College Choir he has brought to the concert hall and recording studio substantial repertories of magnificent Renaissance and Baroque music, including many previously unknown or little-known works from Spain and Portugal. His interpretations of these repertories have been acclaimed as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’, and he has been described as ‘one of the most energetic and persuasive voices’ in this field.
He has conducted at festivals in the UK, USA, and throughout Europe, and is increasingly busy as a leader of workshops on performance of Renaissance polyphony. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and on Portuguese, Spanish, and Norwegian radio. He has released CD recordings on the Hyperion, Herald, Guild and Unicorn Kanchana labels, to consistently high critical acclaim.

The Cambridge Taverner Choir

It's just a month to go now until the second of our Gabrieli concerts, From Venice to Dresden, on Sunday 18th March, performed by the Cambridge Taverner Choir with a fabulous group of Baroque instrumentalists.

The choir recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, with a concert in the Cambridge Summer Festival. The picture shows the them rehearsing for a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2008. Thanks to the devoted librarianship of its Secretary, every performance the choir has given can be reviewed online in the choir archive.

A founding principle of the Cambridge Taverner Choir has been to apply academic rigour and historical context to all performances. The very first concert took place in Tattershall church in Lincolnshire, and featured a reconstruction of a complete mass with the Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas by John Taverner, who was a member of the college at Tattershall in the early sixteenth century.

The choir's director, Dr Owen Rees, is now Fellow and Director of Music at The Queen’s College, Oxford.  Together, he and the choir have released four recordings. A further CD, of music by Monteverdi, will come out later this year.

Gabrieli in the snow

The first flakes of the promised snow fell as the choir and instrumentalists made their way into church for last night's concert. Thankfully, not too many people seemed to have opted to stay at home, and the church was full with an expectant and enthusiastic audience!

Many thanks to Charles Vignoles, the Temenos Chamber Choir, and the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble for a vigorous and joyful rendition of one, two, three and four-choir motets, madrigals and instrumental canzonas to celebrate Gabrieli. The choir has many years' experience of singing early music, which was evident in the confidence and intelligence of their performance.

In the slightly dated copies of one of the motets, the editor Denis Stevens, writing in 1970, noted that "problems of balance inevitably occur when modern brass instruments are substituted for the composer's cornetti and trombones, which in his day and age had a relatively soft and soothing tone". Thankfully, nowadays it is not necessary to follow Stevens' recommendation of deploying oboes instead! The English Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble are one of the country's foremost exponents of early Baroque music, and they brought with them a full band - cornetts, a 'lizard' (a longer, alto cornett, so called because of its double-curved shape), alto, tenor and bass sackbuts (trombones), violin and viola, curtal (a precursor to the bassoon) and organ, which was played magnificently by Duncan Aspden.

An ensemble of much the same instruments will be present for the second of our Gabrieli concerts, on 18 March, From Venice to Dresden. They will accompany the Cambridge Taverner Choir in music by Gabrieli and Schütz. If you attended or missed the first concert, we are delighted to offer you a second chance to be immersed in the music of this glorious period. Discounts are available for early booking.

Gabrieli 400

The 400th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Gabrieli falls in 2012, and we are hosting two concerts in celebration.

Celebrating Gabrieli on Saturday 4th February
From Venice to Dresden on Sunday 18th March

As organist at St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Gabrieli had at his disposal vocal and instrumental resources on a grand scale. This was, after all, one of the richest churches in Christendom, and significant feast days were an opportunity for a great deal of civic celebration and ostentation.

Much of Gabrieli's music makes use of cori spezzati (spaced choirs), and it's likely that groups of performers were sometimes placed some distance apart. At King Charles church we can reflect this practice, albeit dimly, with the use of the opposing galleries.

On the other hand, cornetts and sackbuts were particularly favoured for sacred music at the time because of their ability to blend with the human voice, and they would certainly have been used in amongst the choir, doubling or replacing vocal lines depending on the music or on the availability of singers. So a homegeneous and blended sound would have been prized just as much as the drama of antiphony.

In February's concert, there's a rare chance to hear live one of Gabrieli's most famous motets, the 15-part In Ecclesiis. We hope to see you there!