Nicholas returns for St Albans' Carillon Choir opener

NICHOLAS Robinson has been invited back to conduct the first concert of the new Carillon Season at St Peter s Church, St Albans, next Saturday, October 10. The concert, which starts at 7.30pm, will get underway with motets by Johann Sebastian Bach – Komm,

NICHOLAS Robinson has been invited back to conduct the first concert of the new Carillon Season at St Peter's Church, St Albans, next Saturday, October 10.

The concert, which starts at 7.30pm, will get underway with motets by Johann Sebastian Bach - Komm, Jesu, komm and Furchte dich nicht - and by two mentors, his second cousin Johann Christoph Bach and a great uncle Johann Bach.

Mendelssohn in his turn was hugely influenced by JS Bach and the choir will be performing his Three Psalms, op 78, which represent the pinnacle of his choral composing career.

They will be performed unaccompanied and Carillon will also perform his Verleih' uns Frieden with organ.

Brahms is represented by his Geistliches Lied with organ and his last choral composition, the unaccompanied motet Wenn wir in hochsten Noten sein.

Carillon will also be performing Samuel Wesley's celebrated unaccompanied Easter anthem In Exitu Israel.

The organist in all the accompanied pieces will be Tom Winpenny, assistant master of the music at St Albans Abbey, who will also be playing some solo organ pieces.

Tickets for the concert are �12 with students and pensioners �10, available in advance by calling 01582 763774 or on the door on the night.

n Highlights among the remaining concerts of the Carillon season include a concert of Russian Music which will include the Rachmaninov Vespers at St Peter's Church on February 6 and the joint Carillon/Amadeus Chamber Orchestra venture at St Saviour's on May 22.

In addition to the Haydn Te Deum and the Mozart Coronation Mass, the programme then will include the song-cycle Dies natalis by Finzi in which Carillon president Rogers Covey-Crump will be the tenor soloist.