National Children's Choir at Birmingham Town Hall by Christopher Morley

-
During the long summer holiday, Birmingham in the heart of England is the natural hub for young people gathered together to make great music, as our reviews attest. But what visitors make of the building-site shambles which is Birmingham City Centre, from Centenary Square, across Paradise Circus and into Victoria Square can only be guessed at. I know it makes me more than depressed.
Friday's visitors were the splendid youngsters of the National Children's Choir of Great Britain, expertly trained and unobtrusively disciplined as they celebrated the Choir's 20th anniversary.
With singing, and every other musical activity, disappearing from state schools (apparently teamwork, mutual responsibility, confidence-building, communal achievement are infinitely less important than SATS results) ventures such as this become increasingly vital, and this concert was triumphant proof what can be achieved.
After a variety of offerings from NCCGB's various well-structured ensembles, all engagingly delivered, we ended with the world premiere of Everyday Wonders -- the Girl from Aleppo, by Cecilia McDowall.
McDowall has long had a special gift for choral writing, and here she resourcefully combines upper voices with an SATB chorus (something which would sit well with CBSO forces) in settings of Kevin Crossley-Holland's text narrating the journey of two sisters (one pushing the other in a wheelchair) across the miles from Syria to asylum in Germany (I felt like cheering for Angela Merkel). The music bursts with compassion, almost a complement to the anger of Adrian Williams' Children of Baghdad, premiered in Presteigne at the height of the second Iraq war.
The NCCGB rose gratefully and triumphantly to the score's rewarding challenges under Dan Ludford-Thomas' assuring direction. Claire Dunham was the supportive pianist, and Harriet Mackenzie brought the Middle Eastern modality and inflection of the important solo violin part vividly to life.
Christopher Morley

Popular posts from this blog

Some Enchanted Evenings at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne

-
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY ENJOYED THREE ENCHANTED EVENINGS AT EASTBOURNE'S GRAND HOTEL SOME ENCHANTED EVENINGS Appassionata at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne ***** Eastbourne's breathtakingly magnificent Grand Hotel, so imposing yet also so welcoming, has an impressive roster of visiting musicians since its opening in 1875. Among the many luminaries who have crossed its portals are Debussy (who completed La Mer here), Kreisler, Caruso, Nellie Melba, Ysaye, Paul Robeson, Myra Hess… the list goes on. Latest to join them is the young vocal quartet Appassionata, who, together with pianist Will Sharma, presented a three-night entertainment "Some Enchanted Evenings" at the end of March. It began with baritone Matthew Siveter, already a much-loved veteran of Gilbert and Sullivan productions, presenting his one-man show "A Source of Innocent Merriment", drawing material from the likes of G&S themselves, Noel Coward, Flanders and Swann, Tom Lehrer, as well as d
Read more

Jacquie Lawson e-card music

-
THE MUSIC BEHIND THE E-CARDS MIKE HUGHES-CHAMBERLAIN AND JACQUIE LAWSON E-CARDS by Christopher Morley It's always a joy when an e-greetings card plops into your inbox, not least at festive times of the year. It's easy to understand why the sending of these cyber-messages has become so popular, given the huge cost of postage nowadays At the forefront of this trend are the e-cards produced by Jacquie Lawson, and in addition to the attractive artwork, witty and sensitive storylines, and interactive opportunities offered by these little gems, comes the input of music, atmospheric and appropriate. Whether specially composed or arranged from other sources, these sound-pictures are masterminded by Mike Hughes-Chamberlain, who has made the seamless connection between a musical education and Information Technology in order to create scores for these scores of delightful little gems. He was brought up in Hindhead in Surrey, where his mother founded a music school in 1975.
Read more
-
  Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra 80 th   anniversary concert Birmingham Town Hall   5 stars *****   Eighty years is a ripe age for any orchestra, and two years after Covid scuppered the planned anniversary concert, the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra didn’t stint on what was actually its 82 nd  birthday celebration. The BPO had assembled a chorus specially for the occasion, and with representatives from (among others) Birmingham Bach Choir, Wolverhampton Chamber Choir, Dudley Choral Society and Walsall Choral Society, what was billed as a birthday party for the West Midlands’ pre-eminent amateur orchestra actually served as a much wider showcase for regional amateur music making at its most buoyant.    You wouldn’t have guessed that this was an  ad hoc  choir: tuning was secure, ensemble was tight and the tone glowed, especially up top. With the entire first half devoted to Elgar’s  The Music Makers –  the last masterpiece thar Egar created specifically to be sung here in Birmingh
Read more