Christmas concert 2024

On Friday 13th December, 2024, at 7.30 in Walgrave church (NN6 9QH), we sang our Christmas concert.

Our main choral pieces were music by two very different composers.

Henry Purcell, who lived in the 17th century, was perhaps England's greatest composer from that period. His Magnificat and Nunc dimittis are two short but beautiful pieces of church music.

Francis Poulenc was a 20th century French composer, whose Christmas motets we really enjoyed singing last year. His Gloria is a much more substantial piece, by turns dramatic, lively and calm, with some beautiful soprano solos from our guest soloist Anna Gregg (who also sang with us for Samson at Easter).

In addition, Anna sang for us the popular aria Rejoice Greatly  from Handel's Messiah, as well as solo parts in some of the carols.

Here Ian's response to us after the concert:

"Well, you did it! Brought off a lovely performance of the Poulenc Gloria, lively, rhythmic and expressive in equal measure…ok, maybe not every detail was absolutely there, but we definitely got the spirit of the piece, and of course the performance was complemented by Anna’s beautiful singing, and Richard’s assured accompaniment. A great piece to work on. Well done all!
The Purcell showed good style, and I thought then that the mix of carols both familiar and unfamiliar worked very well: to have Anna join in and then doing a stunning ‘Rejoice’ was the icing on the cake, a real treat! It was altogether an enjoyable and good-natured evening, the audience had a good time, and it wasn’t too cold, either!"