Choirs and singing

CHOIRS AND SINGING

"Since singing is so good a thing, I wish all men would learn to sing" (William Byrd)

Hereford Cathedral Choir

2015 marked the 300th anniversary of the Three Choirs Festival - the oldest non-competitive classical music festival in the world. It's a wonderful week-long programme of choral and orchestral concerts, cathedral services, solo and chamber music recitals, masterclasses, talks, theatre, exhibitions and walks, rotating each summer between the beautiful English cathedral cities of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester.

The 2019 festival is in Gloucester, and 2020 in Worcester. You will find a preview brochure available to download on the website.

Here are links to some of the many choirs active in our area:

Academia Musica

Birmingham Bach Choir

Birmingham Festival Choral Society

Bristol Bach Choir

Bristol Choral Society

Cantores

Cheltenham Bach Choir

Coventry Cathedral Chorus

Crickhowell Choral Society

Ex Cathedra

Gloucester Choral Society

Hereford Chamber Choir

Hereford Choral Society

Malvern Festival Chorus

Monmouth Choral Society

Newent & District Choral Society

Octavo

The Oriel Singers

Philomusica

Saint Cecilia Singers

Saint Michael's Singers - now called Coventry Cathedral Chorus

Severn Voices

The Silurian Choir

South Cotswold Choral Group
A collective of local choral societies who also organise regular "Big Sing" events

Stroud Choral Society

Tanhouse Singers

Tewkesbury Choral Society

Worcester Festival Choral Society

...and of course all the cathedrals and abbeys have
regular sung services including Evensong:

Gloucester Cathedral

Hereford Cathedral

Tewkesbury Abbey︀

Worcester Cathedral

There's now a website listing all sung services around the UK at
www.choralevensong.org

Explore the world of choral and vocal music at these events:

There's now a community choir at the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury, on Tuesday mornings, 9.30 - 10.30. It runs weekly and it's £6 per session - you don't have to read music.

Choraline
If you're a singer, you'll find much of interest on this website - aids to help with learning scores, well-made music folders, choral sheet music and downloads and much more.

Cate Cody is a local jazz singer - see her website at jazzcats.co.uk Cate was also the 2017 Green Party Candidate in the general election and is now a Green councillor for Tewkesbury

Musica Deo Sacra is an annual series of services held each summer including a wonderful variety of music within the liturgy at Tewkesbury Abbey. This year, 2019 it runs from 29 July - 4 August and is directed by Carleton Etherington with Paul Walton as organist. Full details are available on the Tewkesbury Abbey website.

THE STORY OF THE MUSICA DEO SACRA FESTIVAL
For the past 47 years a music festival has taken place in the gloriously soaring architecture of Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire. Around the first week of August the 22 voices of Musica Deo Sacra present a week of music within the liturgy; it may be younger than its illustrious neighbours, the Three Choirs and Edington festivals, but it engenders the greatest of loyalty from the singers who come from all over the country and the congregations who can be drawn from an even wider geography of America, Australia, and Europe. A member of the congregation describes the Musica Deo Sacra festival as ‘A week of truly memorably intense emotional and intellectual satisfaction; and another as ‘It is Anglican worship at its richest’.

The music director until 2017, David Ireson, took over from Brian Coleman who began the week in 1969 at the invitation of Tewkesbury Abbey. David sang as a bass in the first festival and became director in 1978. It has become the high point of the year for him and his singers, one of whom says - ‘after decades of a professional singing career, I still get a thrill out of performing great sacred music in an amazing sacred space’.

As David retires after this year’s festival he looks back at his 38 years directing the group. ‘The week has developed over the years and we have widened the programme of Masses with Compline, a very well attended service, Choral Matins, so rarely offered these days and often an orchestral Mass from the West End of the Abbey – a very different experience from the concert platform! Our Russian Orthodox Liturgies attracted surprisingly large numbers, and as did reconstructions of Masses from 1549 and 1661. We try to include something liturgically unusual each year like Rachmaninoff’s Vespers complete with icons and much incense, Tenebrae, and Benediction. One day during the week is spent away from Tewkesbury and over the years we have sung in interesting places like Abbey Dore, Prinknash Abbey, Pershore Abbey, Great Witley as well as the local 3 Choirs and Bristol cathedrals’.

The Musica Deo Sacra singers come from a wide range of concert, cathedral, and collegiate choirs including St George’s Chapel, Windsor, the Sixteen and the former Hilliard Ensemble. From another singer ‘ I come back every year for the sheer pleasure of singing an astonishing range of music to a high standard and with a choir of like-minded and amazingly gifted people in my favourite building in England’.

As David says ‘One of our aims is to offer the very best of choral music from across the ages and we have commissioned new pieces from such as Michael Tavinor, Malcolm Archer, Tom Wiggall, Matthew Martin and Andrew Parnell. And with this idea of performing the best of the old with the challenge of the new I am handing over an excellent group of voices which blends experience with youth. The gifted Carleton Etherington, organist at Tewkesbury Abbey and organist to MDS since 2004, will take over as director in 2017 and I wish him, the singers, our congregations and everyone at the Abbey who make this week so very special, Godspeed into Musica Deo Sacra’s half century.’