From Lucy Kidd of St Andrews Chorus
We’re a large, non-auditioned choir that meets in the heart of St Andrews once a week. Rehearsals for our next concert start in September (Thursdays, 7:00 to 9:15 pm, in the Laidlaw Music Centre, Queen’s Terrace). Our next performance will be at Caird Hall, Dundee, at 7:30 pm on Sunday 17th November 2024, featuring an exciting programme of French 19th- and 20th-century music: Gabriel Fauré’s much-loved Requiem, alongside his choral Pavane, Francis Poulenc’s Gloria and the orchestral version of Ravel’s Pavane pour une enfante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Infanta).
The Caird Hall is an ideal venue for these works, which were conceived for large choruses and orchestras, and the Chorus and our Musical Director, Michael Downes, who will conduct the performance, are looking forward to giving student singers and local members the chance to perform in a world-class concert hall. The Chorus, which finished its 2023-24 season 120 members strong, will join forces with vocal soloists Caroline Taylor (soprano) and Ben McAteer (baritone) and be accompanied by the newly-formed River Tay Sinfonia, led by Feargus Hetherington.
Fauré described his Requiem, an adapted version of the Roman Catholic funeral mass, as "dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest"; its first version premiered at the Church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Paris in 1888, with its eventual final iteration, reworked for full orchestra, making its debut at the Trocadéro during the Exposition Universelle of 1900. Fauré told an interviewer that in writing his Requiem he chose to "see death… as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than a painful experience". It has been a favourite choral work ever since its first performances.
Poulenc’s Gloria, written a little over half a century later, had its premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1961. Poulenc, early in his life, drew musical inspiration from the works of Debussy, Schubert and Stravinsky, and his mentors included the pianist Ricardo Viñes and composer Erik Satie. His early works were noted for their playful irreverence, but from 1936 onwards Poulenc became interested in religious music of a more sombre nature. The different musical styles heard in the Gloria draw on all of these influences – it is a work of vast variety and drama.
Over the years, the Chorus has had a loyal audience of friends and supporters, so we hope that as many as possible will cross the Tay for this special occasion. Tickets for the concert are £15 (£5 for students and unemployed, accompanied school pupils free), and will be available from Chorus members, by emailing stachorus@gmail.com, from the Caird Hall’s box office website (www.dundeebox.co.uk) or at Caird Hall box office on the night of the concert.
Visit st-andrews-chorus.org.uk for more information.
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