Sunday, 9 June 2013
Choirs on a Summer’s Afternoon
Alyssium and Vox Aurum
Wainsgate Chapel
Saturday June 15th at 3pm.
£8 and £6 (£2 for under 18s) available on the door.
The next concert in Wainsgate Chapel’s summer series features two highly contrasting, yet surprisingly well-matched choral ensembles. Lancashire-based Vox Aurum is a young mixed voice choir which will be sharing the bill with Alyssium: an upper voice ensemble based in and around Hebden Bridge.
Vox Aurum is a new ensemble which was formed last year by well-known early music singer Deborah Catterall, who has taught singing at Chethams, Huddersfield and Manchester Universities, directed the Huddersfield University Choir and is the founder/director of the Laudamus choirs. She has recorded several CDs, notably with early music ensemble York Waits.
The choir has recently performed twice at the Royal Northern College of Music, at the British School in the Netherlands with lutenist Martin Eastwell and at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Their performance at Wainsgate will include the Beatus Vir and several Italian madrigals by Monteverdi, for which they will be accompanied by Chester Baroque with the highly acclaimed Grace Barton on solo recorder.
The female vocal ensemble Alyssium sings atmospheric and evocative choral music by local composer Alison West, and complementary pieces by Veljo Tormis and James MacMillan. Their programme will include settings of words by three local poets: Amanda Dalton, Donald Atkinson and Angela Cairns; as well as poems by Emily Dickinson. There are also some Estonian folk-tunes and songs about the sea, Scottish islands and the Brontë sisters.
The concert will have an extended interval during which teas and homemade cakes will be available, and instrumental music will be performed in the churchyard by Hazel Bone, Jim Ledwidge and others.
“We put a similar event in 2011 with a Hungarian Choir paired up with the Glasgow Madrigirls,” concert organiser Dave Nelson told the HebWeb. “It too had a longer interval with afternoon tea being served up in the sunshine and accompanied by live acoustic music. I am certain this concert will be at least as good!”
Alyssium and Vox Aurum perform at Wainsgate Chapel on Saturday June 15th at 3pm. Tickets are £8 and £6 (£2 for under 18s) and are only available on the door.
Wainsgate Chapel is on Wainsgate Lane, Old Town, Hebden Bridge HX7 8SU. Parking there is limited and reserved for disabled drivers. There are plenty of footpaths for those who’d like to walk from Hebden Bridge or there’s an hourly bus service to Old Town Mill Lane (opposite Wainsgate Lane) where parking is also available. More information at about the venue and future events can be found at www.wainsgate.co.uk.