Tag: Sheffield Bach Choir

Messiah on the Move on Monday 2nd!

Sheffield Bach Choir’s December presentation of Handel’s “Messiah” (as usual, a complete rendition, from “cover to cover” as we say in Yorkshire) moves this year to the City’s Victoria Hall Methodist Mission just opposite the stage door of the Crucible Theatre. The invasion is necessitated by building work in historic Sheffield Cathedral and the “Messiah” concert will be the second occasion this season that finds the Bach Choir and the National Festival Orchestra being made warmly welcome in the Victoria Hall – the first was a Baroque Festival concert in October.

A magnificent quartet of soloists – Philippa Hyde, David Allsopp, Ben Thapa and Sheffield’s own Matthew Palmer – will be joined by organist and harpsichordist Alan Horsey. Advance booking is strongly advised, as this event traditionally attracts a very substantial audience. Monday 2 December is the date and the concert begins at 7.00 pm to accommodate the rendition of the whole work within a reasonable time-scale at the end of the evening. As usual at Bach Choir performances of “Messiah”, we follow the tradition of holding a Retiring Collection for charitable endeavour and this year the proceeds will go to a special project of social outreach devised by the Victoria Hall.

Musicians Muster for Centenary

Musicians from all over the North of England and further afield head for Sheffield on Saturday 23 November, the weekend of the centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh in 1913, for a gala concert of British Music at St Mark’s in Broomhill – a church celebrating itself this Autumn the fiftieth anniversary of its re-consecration in 1963 following war damage, and now widely acknowledged as one of the finest of England’s more modern churches.

The concert by Sheffield Bach Choir with the National Festival Orchestra features the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and the “St Nicolas Cantata” by Britten. Special guests include the acclaimed choristers from St John’s Ranmoor, directed by Ian Roberts and young soloists from Wakefield Cathedral and Leeds Minster. It is the second occasion in recent years that the Bach Choir has been joined by the Ranmoor choristers – on the first occasion they played the parts of ragamuffins in Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”; this time their music is rather more conventional in character. Well-known horn soloist Jenny Cox joins Bach Choir regular guest Tenor Stephen Liley from Bedfordshire in the line up and the evening unfolds from Gustav Holst’s Two Psalms of 1912 featuring Stephen and Sheffield soprano Jenny Leadbeater in principal roles. Getting on for 120 performers in all, we reckon!