After a gap of nearly two years, St Albans Chamber Choir is looking forward to welcoming an audience to an afternoon concert.
The choir's forthcoming concert, its first since February 2020, will take place in St Saviour's Church on Saturday, November 13.
The concert is called The Lark Ascending and features music for solo violin and choir including a choral arrangement of the well-loved Vaughan Williams piece of that name.
The Lark Ascending was voted the nation’s favourite piece of classical music by Classic FM listeners for a record 11th time earlier this year.
Written on the eve of the First World War, Ralph Vaughan WiIliams’ The Lark Ascending is seen as a rural idyll of an England soon to be lost forever.
Paul Drayton’s 2018 choral arrangement of this popular piece has the original solo violin part soaring high above a chorus representing the landscape beneath, sometimes wordless and at other times singing lines from George Meredith's 1881 poem.
Especially designed to be a family-friendly event, the programme also includes two pieces of musical storytelling.
Ferdinand the Bull by Alan Ridout tells of a young bull who would much rather sit under a cork tree and smell the flowers than compete in the bullfights.
Local composer Cecilia McDowall’s cantata Everyday Wonders: The Girl from Aleppo is a moving account of the extraordinary 3,500-mile journey in a wheelchair made by disabled teenager, Nujeen Mustafa, from war-torn Syria to a new life in Germany.
Completing the programme will be a magnificent 19th century choral Mass by the German composer Rheinberger.
The music will be conducted by the choir’s musical director, John Gibbons BEM, with violinist Midori Komachi and pianist Susie Arbeid.
Seating arrangements for this concert will have families in the front rows with socially-distanced seating for others at the rear of the church.
The concert at the church in Sandpit Lane starts at 2pm.
Tickets cost £15, £1 for under-18s, and £5 for full-time students.
They are available online at ticketsource.co.uk or by phone on 07570 842846 or email at tickets@stalbanschamberchoir.org.uk
For more on St Albans Chamber Choir, visit www.stalbanschamberchoir.org.uk
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