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Wednesday 10th February 2010

Concert for Haiti

We're pleased to report that the concert on February 9 was a huge success, with a choir for the Faure Requiem numbering about 150 and the Wyre Forest Young Voices also in large numbers.  The audience filled St. Mary's Church.   We haven't yet got a final figure for the proceeds of the concert, but it's likely to be about £5,500.

A full report, with some pictures, will be posted soon.

A great big "thankyou" to all who were involved, and to all who contributed to such a wonderful result!

Saturday 23rd January 2010

HAYDN'S "CREATION" - NOVEMBER, 2009

At our Autumn Concert in the Town Hall on 28 November we performed Haydn’s great oratorio “The Creation”, most fitting in this, the composer’s 200^th anniversary year.  We had a fine trio of soloists in Catherine Fish (soprano), Ben Thapa (tenor) and Marcus Farnsworth (baritone).  Marcus Huxley (organ) and The Elgar Sinfonia provided excellent accompaniment, as always. 

 Haydn’s music is endlessly inventive, and never more so than in this work.  The orchestral word-painting is superb, and the sheer strength of the choruses is really impressive - they are a joy to sing.  The three soloists - all with big voices - sang powerfully or sensitively as required, in solo arias and in ensemble.  There is much of the bel canto here and some wonderful coloratura passages, especially for the soprano.  One wonders whether Haydn might have been accounted a great opera composer too, had he been served with the superb plots and librettos of a Beaumarchais or a Da Ponte, as was Mozart.

 The concert was well attended, always of course heartening to see, and the audience applause at the end was enthusiastic and prolonged.  Our conductor Geoff Weaver is to be congratulated on an outstanding performance.

Peter Knott

Tuesday 8th December 2009

Husum Ahoy!

My fourth yearly Autumn visit to sing with the Theodor Storms Chor in Husum was marked by a complete absence of sunshine, but it was also a time to enjoy a feast of Mozart.

Penny and I flew from Birmingham to Hamburg as usual, then took the brand-new S-Bahn (underground) to the main railway station, and the train to Schleswig, where we were met by Marketta Weßler.  On the return journey Georg Weßler drove us straight to the Hamburg airport – for chauffeuring us, and for their unfailingly generous hospitality, we owe them very sincere thanks.

Friday morning provided an opportunity, on the occasion of the anniversary of the opening of the Altenbegegnungsstätte (a community centre for the elderly run by St. Marienkirche), to hear a talk by Henning Scherf, the former Bürgermeister of Bremen, on opportunities and services for the elderly;  he was an engaging and passionate speaker. 

Later that day I joined the members of the Theodor Storms Chor on a coach to St. Peter-Ording for the first rehearsal of the weekend.  The TSC had joined with the Kantorei St. Peter to perform Mozart’s Requiem (in the 1993 realisation by American composer Robert Levin) and Vesperae solennes de Dominica, and, as Jens Weigelt, the TSC’s conductor, was recovering after a heart attack, the rehearsals and both concerts were conducted by Christoph Jensen, director of the Kantorei St. Peter and a former pupil of Jens Weigelt.

Saturday began with some shopping and then, after lunch, the journey to Tating, near St. Peter-Ording, where that day’s concert would take place.  Tating’s St. Magnuskirche – the largest on the Eiderstedt peninsula – dates from 1103 and has many historic features: a good venue for Mozart, but as it turned out not really ideal for the size of the choir, orchestra and audience.  Nevertheless, an enjoyable rehearsal and performance, marked particularly by the beautiful singing of the four soloists and the playing of the concerto classico orchestra – a group of professionals and students based in St. Peter-Ording.

On Sunday we and our hosts were guests of Manfred Kamper (former Propst of the then Husum-Bredstedt Kirchenkreis) and his wife Frigga for a lunch that featured Grünkohl, a speciality of Nordfriesland, after which we made our way to the Stadtkirche, St. Marien, for another rehearsal before our second concert.  St. Marienkirche is a much larger venue than the church at Tating, and although there was a capacity audience the overall effect was very impressive.  Again the soloists excelled, and Christoph Jensen showed himself an able and sensitive musical director.  All in all a most enjoyable concert.

Sunday’s concert began at 5.00 p.m., which allowed plenty of time for the party at the Thomas Hotel that followed – a time to reminisce and to renew old friendships.  At the party Jens Weigelt, who had attended that day’s rehearsal and concert, made a speech, and was evidently well on the way to recovering his former energy and strength.

Before we left Husum on Monday there was just time for a call at the Rathaus, where we met up with Bürgermeister Rainer Maaß, and a bit of last-minute shopping.  And so back to England – tired, but happy to have experienced once again the pleasures of friendship and music-making in Husum.

Ray Harrowing

Saturday 29th August 2009

Wyre Forest Young Voices - Geoff's End-of-Year Report

2009 has been an exciting year for Wyre Forest Young Voices, one of the premier choirs of the Midlands. In February the choir undertook a four-concert tour of Cyprus, singing in both the south and the north of the island with Greek and Turkish Cypriot choirs - and then memorably on the Green Line which divides north and south, this time making music with Greek and Turkish Cypriot youngsters. Deep friendships were formed; choir members are still regularly in touch with their Cypriot friends, and there is no doubt that music helped to forge new friendships – and, hopefully, to bring reconciliation in that divided island.

 Back home, the choir gave a memorable concert, together with Primary Chords, the Choral Society’s choir for 5-9 year olds, in Kidderminster Town Hall in March, with highlights from the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The WFYV Consort has given three recitals to great acclaim: in Shrewsbury Abbey with the choir of Wheaton College, Chicago, in Knighton Parish Church, and most recently in Holy Innocents Church, Kidderminster. This outstanding group of the choir's senior members are now moving on;  a number of them will progress to music college or university to read music, highlighting the important educational work that the choir does.

The final concert of the season, always a sad occasion as we say goodbye to some who have sung with the choir for nine years, was in Bewdley Parish Church.  Entitled Crossing the River, it featured songs of love and farewell - an appropriate ending to the concert season.

 Geoffrey Weaver