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ECS Members' Notice Board

This page shows information on the music to be performed at the next and subsequent concerts and choir news past, present and future.

You can discover how to contact, and who are, your section representatives and members of the ECS committee on the Reps & Officers' page

You can find the ECS diary showing the programme of rehearsals and events scheduled for this term and, as far as is planned in the future in the Members' Diary

A group of Eltham Choral Society     
sopranos during a sectional rehearsal

ITEM 1

ELTHAM CHORAL SOCIETY 2016 Music Notes for Proposed Concerts

....... Upcoming concerts with known programming giving details on works, scores, rehearsal files etc....

Easter Concert Sunday 20th March 2016, Blackheath Halls

Easter Concert

At Easter we will be taking on Haydn's monumental work, The Creation, alongside the Blackheath Halls Choir and the Blackheath Halls Orchestra in Blackheath Hall. Haydn made two visits to London in the early 1790's, during which time he learned of the death of his friend Mozart. During one such trip, he made a visit to the famous astronomer Herschel in Slough. It is said that he asked Herschel for his opinion on the biblical account of the seven-day creation and then headed back to start writing his oratorio. So much for John Betjeman's famous poem.....

The Programme:

Haydn's Creation

Rehearsal Files:

Summer Concert Saturday 16th July 2016, 7.30pm, Holy Trinity Church

Summer Concert

And we round our season off in the summer by continuing in the British vein with Henry Purcell's ode Welcome To All The Pleasures, Thomas Tallis' Nine Tunes from Archbishop Parker's Psalter, Vaughan Williams' Lord Thou Hast Been Our Refuge and a setting of Ave Maris Stella by the contemporary English composer Cecilia McDowall. I end with a quote about this work from the International Record Review, 2005: Ave maris stella is a splendidly original (because it is so obviously meant as a composition) setting for solo soprano, chorus and string orchestra ... a Britten influence may be found here but only in passing and I mention this to try to urge McDowall's Englishness upon you - I love it and I think you will also.

Peter Asprey

Check here for the Society's
code of coduct and protocol
for concert performances.

 

Discount for ECS members at ChoraLine

A 10% discount for ECS members is now available at ChoraLine on rehearsal CDs and MP3 downloads and vocal scores. All items can be purchased on the website http://www.choraline.com or over the phone. When ordering online, members just need to enter ELTHAM into the discount code box and click the green arrows on the shopping basket page of the website in order automatically to receive a discount and see the amount saved.

For example this reduces the cost of a ChoraLine rehearsal CD to £10.79. This is obviously more expensive than the free downloads available, but the quality and ease of use of the Choraline cannot be faulted. MP3 downloads of the CDs are slightly cheaper.

ChoraLine also stocks a range of vocal scores, choir folders, unique singing sets, and other items of interest to choral singers all of which will receive the 10% saving by using the discount code. They are also happy to take orders over the phone (0845 304 5070) and still give the 10% saving.

ITEM 2

Proposed Concert Tour - 2016 to Provence

....... Details of the proposed tour in June 2016 and a call for registrations ....

The ninth Eltham Choral Society concert trip to continental Europe will be to Provence with in 2016.

The Story so far:

We will be travelling out on bank holiday Monday, 30 May 2016 to travel by Eurostar from Ashford to Avignon, then on to Nîmes, staying at Ibis Nîmes Ouest for four nights. The return journey will be the same way on Friday, 3 June. Transfers from Eltham to Ashford and Avignon to Nîmes and back will be by coach.

Our Accommodation:

Our hotel will be the Ibis Nîmes Ouest, a modern, comfortable hotel a couple of miles outside the city centre with good local transport links. It has a bar, restaurant and outside swimming pool in an attractive garden. It offers twin en suite rooms, and a limited number of single rooms which may be available at additional cost.

The programme.

Our plan is to perform two concerts on the trip for which we are aiming to secure the cathedral in Aix-en-Provence and another church in the region. Whatever the concert venues, we will be assured of plenty of time to explore this beautiful region with one full day for excursions or relaxation and time on concert days to enjoy the area surrounding our chosen venues. We will try to arrange a farewell lunch for the whole party in an attractive restaurant in Avignon before catching Eurostar home.

Please download the newsletter for full details. There is an attached form which needs completion for insurance purposes. Please return it to Tony or one of the tour organising committee, asap.

Previous tours have all been highly enjoyable and successful so please do not hesitate to get yourself signed up!

ITEM 3

Past Concert reviews

....... What the Press had to say about some of our past concerts ....

Eltham Choral Society Reviews

30TH JUNE 2012 THE SUMMER CONCERT - OLYMPIC YEAR COMPETITION FINALS

Review from the SEnine Click for Full Report

23RD JUNE 2001 CARMINA BURANA CONCERT REVIEW

Review from the The Kentish Times, July 6th 2001

Choral society works wonders.

Amateur and professional community-based choirs around the country add a great deal to our cultural and social heritage. But for many the problem of finding enough singers to maintain an acceptable balance between the male and female voices is a constant battle. I could only wonder how Eltham Choral Society still manages to perform demanding works with such professionalism and beautifully rich sounds and harmonies when I heard its recent concert at Holy Trinity Church.

For 25 years the choir was conducted by Miriam Coe and her influence was remarkable. Now a new conductor has been appointed: Nicholas Jenkins has an excellent musical pedigree and is a fluent, expressive conductor.

The main work of the evening was Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, a theatrical, musically inventive, and a darkly passionate musical evocation of 13th Century secular poems. Untouched by religious overtones, they can be simply described as a celebration of ribald encounters with wine, women and song. Very difficult to conduct and sing, this was an outstanding performance. Disciplined throughout, the choir handled the work with passion and great drama. The conductor kept supreme control, the percussion excelled and the soloists, Rebecca Bottone (soprano), Mark Milhofer (tenor) and Mark Chaundy (baritone) sang with great professionalism. Mark Milhofer's handling of the strange mixture of tenor and alto pitches in his own very short solo section was a triumph of expressive creativity.The musical accompaniment was provided by pianists Tony Baldwin and David Battersby and a five-strong percussion section.

The concert opened with Bach's popular Brandenburg Concerto No.2. Without any real reflection on the pianists, the arrangement made a travesty of the work. However, the piano accompaniment for two of Verdi's choral works was excellent and the choir particularly excelled in the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco.

Roy Atterbury

28TH OCTOBER, 2000. TIPPETT, A CHILD OF OUR TIME REVIEW

Review from the Kentish Times, 9th November 2000

A concert in the Chapel of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich attracted a near capacity audience for what was very much a celebration of local culture.

The Eltham Choral Society was joined by the Ascension Choir from Blackheath, the children's choir from St Ursula's Convent School in Greenwich and the Kidbrooke School's Choirs in a performance of Michael Tippett's oratorio A Child of Our Time. The orchestra was the Music Sinfonia of Trinity College, an institution shortly to take up residence at the Royal Naval College

While Tippett's work has sometimes been criticised for Socialist overtones, it remains a most powerful musical denouncement of racial intolerance. The negro spirituals used in the piece to underscore the torment of oppressed races are not only a highly moving element of the oratorio, they are an acknowledgement by the composer that nothing he could compose would match the simplicity and beauty of their melodies and words.

Under their conductor, Miriam Coe, (musical director of the Eltham Choral Society), the choir gave a performance that fully captured the complex mixture of hatred, passion and disquiet that is inherent in the oratorio.

The soloists, Mary Seers, Patricia Williams and John Bowley and the impressive narrator, Brindley Sherratt, added further quality to the memorable occasion.

The concert opened with Andrew Morely conducting the two popular works by Aaron Copland. The Fanfare for the Common Man provided an ideal opportunity for the brass section of the Sinfonia to show off its skills to great effect while the orchestral ballet suite Appalachian Spring was played with warmth, colour and vitality.

The concert was supported by Greenwich Council and the New Millennium Experience Company as part of the Time to Celebrate events

Roy Atterbury

FELPHAM CONCERT TOUR - SATURDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER 1998

An Autumn concert visit to Felpham near Bognor was enjoyed by all who went. The following review appeared in the parish magazine:

Saturday 26th September was a damp, miserable day, but for those of us who attended the Eltham Choral Society concert in St. Mary's, the event was enough to wipe away the memories of those leaden skies.

The church provided a warm and inviting backdrop as the choir started their programme with the first half, a well balanced mixture of music and readings, old and modern, on an autumn theme. The music ranged from Handel, Mozart, Purcell and Vaughan-Williams to modern composers Maxwell-Davies, Jenkins and Taverner. The readings from Keats and Betjeman were well chosen and complemented the music perfectly.

The second half consisted of a hastily rehearsed recital of Faure's Requiem as the original programme included Vivaldi's Gloria which is due to be performed next month by our own choirs. Unphased by this, the Society showed their professionalism and talent by delivering a stunning performance of the piece that on its first hearing had been thought to be "too lively" for a requiem.

Shelagh Eastwood whose clarity and range filled the vaulted ceilings and lifted the spirits, performed the soprano solo, Pie Jesu. The organist, Tony Baldwin, showed us new heights with his accomplished playing, never masking the singing, only complementing it.

Miriam Coe, the musical director, joined the Society 23 years ago to escape the tribulations of 2-year-old toddlers. As she led us through the programme, her enthusiasm and vitality focused the eyes and ears of both choir and audience,

Comments following the performance were full of praise. Hopefully we will be able to arrange a return visit so those who missed this stunning evening can have a second chance to enjoy the Eltham Choral Society.

Robert Baker

4TH APRIL 1998 HAYDN CONCERT REVIEW

Review from the The Kentish Times, April 9th 1998

Society May Have Hit the Ton

Last Saturday the Eltham Choral society's 90th Anniversary Concert at Holy Trinity Church was not quite the occasion I expected.

It was certainly the 90th anniversary of the Society's first performance of Haydn's the Creation which took place at the same church in Southend Crescent, on April 27, 1908. However, a subsequent review of the concert in the Times of the day made it clear the choir was already well established in the community. Indeed, an earlier report refers to the ECS performing at Eynsford in 1907. In the absence of any other historical records, therefore, this latest event could well have been a celebration of the choir's 100th anniversary which would have given the event greater importance. There is obviously no way of comparing the quality of the 1908 and 1998 ensembles but there is no doubt that the present choir is of an exceptional standard and, with almost 70 singers, it brought great passion and a supremely delicate lyricism to Haydn's work.

Delicate

The musical director of the ECS is Miriam Coe who conducts without a baton but uses restrained yet commandingly delicate hand movements to coax some inspired reactions from both the choir and the orchestra. The rising phrase in the last section of the second part was an object lesson in choral discipline as well as purity of sound. The 35-strong orchestra was bolstered by a fine organist in Tony Baldwin who is also assistant musical director of the choir. He not only provided a further depth to the orchestral playing but never once allowed his potentially powerful instrument to conflict with the perfect balance that was maintained overall.

In Susan Hendrie (soprano), Alan Jolly (tenor) and Paul Keohane (bass baritone), the society had brought together singers with great expressive skills who blended perfectly in the duets and trios. I was fascinated by Alan Jolly's tenor voice that had a gentleness and expression which had an odd affinity to the pure alto - but clearly in effect rather than pitch.

Haydn's work is not only great choral music, it is also fascinating in the way it heralds a new area of music. Written when the composer was at his zenith at 61, there are times when the brilliance of Mozart and the romanticism of Brahms, Beethoven and others are reflected in an orchestral approach which then slips almost into a near chamber mode. Seventeenth and 18th century music all seem to come together and the interpretative skills brought to this fascinating range of contrasts by all concerned made the concert an event to remember.

Roy Atterbury

ITEM 4

Other Choirs and Organisations

....... News of events and activities of other choirs and organisations of interest to members ....

Item - EXPIRES: 31st October 2015

Come-and-Sing Handel Coronation Anthems, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London

Saturday 31st October 2015, 10.00am to 1.00pm - Join Andrew Earis and members of St Martin’s Voices for a morning workshop on three of Handel’s celebrated Coronation Anthems: Zadok the Priest, Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened and The King Shall Rejoice.

10.00am doors open
10.15am workshop
12.30pm informal performance

Tickets: £12 including music hire
The ability to read music and experience of singing in a choir is required.

For further information, please visit chttp://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/event/come-and-sing-coronation-anthems/" target="_blank">our web-site

To book tickets, please call the Box Office on 0207 766 1100 or book online at http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/event/come-and-sing-coronation-anthems/. There is a booking fee of £1.75 when booking online or by phone. Please specify your voice type when booking.

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Future Come-and-Sing events at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London

Saturday 20th February 2016 Choruses from Haydn’s Creation
Saturday 4th June 2016 Choruses from Mendelssohn’s Elijah
Saturday 29th October 2016 Choruses from Handel’s Messiah

Item - EXPIRES: 13th February 2016

'Make More of Mozart'

Join our Workshop on Mozart’s Requiem - Saturday 13th February 2016, 1pm - 5pm

Good afternoon
We want to share with you the exciting news that Tonbridge Philharmonic Society is going to run another Workshop following on from the very enjoyable time we all had in April when we spent a great afternoon mastering the Tricky bits of the Messiah under the baton of our dynamic Music Director Matthew Willis.
Mozart's Requiem - Saturday 13th February 2016 - Tonbridge School - 1pm - 5pm -informal concert to be performed at the end of the workshop - friends and family welcome. £20 to include refreshments (home made cake!)
For enrolment form or further queries or questions do contact us via this email address tonphilworkshop@gmail.com or check out our web-site for all of our society information including details of our upcoming concerts.
Many thanks
Helen and Sheila - Workshop Co-ordinators