Fresh from its appearance on Heart Kent Radio recently, the Cecilian Choir will once again take to the air-waves when it features on BBC Radio 3’s My Choir this Sunday.
The weekly programme celebrating choral singing will feature the Choir as part of its ‘Meet My Choir’ slot, in which it highlights choirs from around the country. Needless to say, the student and staff members of the Cecilian Choir are very excited at the prospect.
Image: Matt Wilson
You can listen to the programme this Sunday at 4pm here; thank you to English lecturer and member of the bass section, Dr Michael Hughes, for coming up with the idea! The audio extract will also feature the University String Sinfonia.
And if you want to hear the Choir and Sinfonia live in performance, they will be celebrating Easter with two of Vivaldi’s dramatic choral works, the Credo and Magnificat, alongside a trio sonata and Mozart’s Ave Verum at St Peter’s Methodist Church in Canterbury on Thursday 31 March at 1.10pm; details here.
This is such a difficult question to answer! I have sung so many pieces in a variety of styles, both in choirs and as a solo performer, that choosing one is no easy task… I think my favourite choral piece has got to be ‘And The Glory Of The Lord’ from Handel’s Messiah because it is so much fun to listen to as well as sing, although it’s no easy task!
What’s your favourite piece ?
The Chamber Choir, phoenix-like, has risen anew once more – over half the Choir is new this year – and has been busy exploring a range of repertoire for the annual concert in the Cathedral Crypt in March. Before that, though looms the University Carol Service – always a high point in the Choir’s performing calendar – and we’re currently busy learning a fistful of pieces; this year, one of the carols is the radiantly-colourful Hymn to the Virgin written by Edinburgh-based Steven Griffin, which was originally written for the Kings’ Singers and won the Classic FM ‘Carol for Christmas’ competition in 2012. It’s nice to be exploring a different setting to the customary one by Britten, and the work’s purple-hued harmonic language is really starting to blossom as the Choir grows in confidence. This year’s student conductor, fourth-year Emma Murton, is also working on Ravenscroft’s meditative Remember, O Thou Man, for the Big Church in a couple of weeks’ time.
The Cecilian Choir has also burst into life, and is currently rehearsing Monteverdi’s Beatus Vir and Hassler’s Alleluja, two vibrant pieces which explore textural variation within the ensemble to dramatic effect; and the Monteverdi is certainly keeping us on our toes…
This is my fifth year of working at the University, and you’d have thought that I’d have grown accustomed to this situation by now. But it doesn’t get any easier; there’s so much fun to be had amidst the hard work, and so much satisfaction accrued from delivering a polished performance, that bidding farewell to the ensembles, and the singers of whom they are comprised, is difficult. There will, of course, be new faces next year, new singers and new members as the Choirs re-form and begin anew their musical exploration together – always an exciting start to the academic year. But I will miss the incarnation of each Choir; it’s been a large part of my working year, in which my expectations for them have been matched by their whole-hearted commitment.