This season’s festivities are well and truly underway for those of us who were fortunate enough to attend a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Harpenden Methodist Church.

It was sung and played by the wonderful Amici Voices and Amici Baroque Players and directed by Terence Charlston.

The choir, which consists of eight young singers who are all at the start of their professional musical careers, were incredibly impressive throughout the whole performance.

The choruses were sung with great energy and attention to detail.

One of the great features of this choir is that they also perform all the solo arias and recitatives themselves, each singer having an opportunity to shine as the Oratorio develops.

This was all done to a very high standard with some excellent solo singing, particularly from Hiroshi Amako, who sang the role of Evangelist brilliantly and really deserved his individual ovation at the end of the performance.

The Amici Baroque Players were a fantastic support to the choir and it was a special treat for the audience to have an orchestra of such quality performing on authentic period instruments.

The whole performance was expertly conducted by Terence Charlston who continues to bring performances of the highest professional standard from the very best musicians to Harpenden.

RUSSELL TUCKER