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Beckenham Chorale Winter Concert – Frost and Light
Saturday 2nd December 2017 at 8:00 pm

Morten Laurisden: O Magnum Mysterium

Randall Thompson: Frostiana – 7 Country Songs

Howard Goodall: Eternal Light – A Requiem

Soprano: Helen Neeves

Baritone: Michael Craddock

Conductor:Mark Griffiths

St Paul’s Sinfonia

 

Allocated seats £13 and £10 in advance (£14 and £11 on the door)

Unnumbered seats £8

Box Office Opens Tuesday 31st October

On-line Bookings via this link

Telephone bookings 020 8658 0329 and 020 8658 0875

In person at St George’s Parish Office (in the church Monday to Friday 9.30am to 2.30pm

 

 

 

Refreshments

There will be a licensed Cash Only bar or bars for this event under the auspices of a TEN licence from Bromley Council. Refreshments may be purchased during the interval only.

The usual alcohol licensing law applies.

Artist Information

Helen Neeves

Soprano

Helen Neeves trained at the University of York and the Royal College of Music; she is currently studying with Julie Kennard.

She has many years of experience as a solo and consort singer, encompassing concert work, recordings and radio broadcasts, particularly in the fields of Baroque and Classical music. A snapshot of Helen’s repertoire is shown in the following list of recent solo engagements – Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Exsultate Jubilate, Handel’s Messiah, and Bach’s St John Passion. Other recent engagements have included the Brahms Requiem in Worcester Cathedral and a semi-staged production of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in this year’s York Early Music Festival. Having performed John Rutter’s Requiem and Gorecki’s Second Symphony in Munich last month, Helen will be returning next year to perform Marcel Dupré’s De Profundis. Other engagements next year will include Haydn’s Theresienmesse with the Northern Sinfonia and the Mozart Requiem in Warwick.

Helen is very pleased to be part of an interesting project created to mark the Jane Austen bicentenary which has taken place this year. She has teamed up with pianist Samantha Carrasco and harpist Kate Ham to present The Musical World of Jane Austen – a fascinating exploration of the Austen Family Music books. Having performed at various venues, including Winchester Cathedral on the day of the anniversary, and also the Assembly Rooms in Bath, the Austen Trio are shortly bringing out a CD to coincide with a tour to the US next year.

Michael Craddock

Baritone

Michael Craddock (baritone) is a London-based freelance singer who started his musical education with the choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, with whom he sang for four years while studying Mathematics.

His operatic performances have included Smirnov in Walton’s The Bear for Opera Minima and Opera Anywhere, Bottom in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Aldeburgh, sharing the role with Matthew Rose, Dr. Malatesta in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale for Opera Minima, Prince Yamidori in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly for Opera A La Carte and the Marchese d’Obigny in Verdi’s La Traviata for Regents Opera at the Bermuda Festival.  He sang the dual roles of Alfio and Tonio in Hampstead Garden Opera’s Spring 2016 performances of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci and the role of Dandini in the Bedford Park Festival production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola.

He is a founder member of the Gesualdo Six, an all-male vocal consort who have a busy concert schedule in the UK and further afield.  He also frequently works with the ensemble Amici Voices, who perform the works of J.S. Bach one-to-a-part, and have recently recorded their second CD.  In their performance of the St Matthew Passion “Michael Craddock … deserve[d] special mention” (Early Music Review).

Other concert and consort work has included engagements with Polyphony, the Marian Consort, The London Choral Sinfonia, The Cardinall’s Musick, the Gabrieli Consort and the Choir of the Enlightenment.  Next year he will travel to Auckland to perform the St. Matthew Passion with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.  He studies with Gary Coward, and in his spare time enjoys cinema, hopped beverages and cricket.

Mark Griffiths

Musical Director

Mark studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music and began his career as a professional singer.  He has been Musical Director of the London-based chamber choir Coro since 2003, conducting them to international competitive success, in regular concerts throughout Britain and Europe, and on radio and CD.  He also works with large symphonic choruses including the Philharmonia Chorus and the Brighton Festival Chorus.

Mark has a wealth of experience with younger singers, too, as Director of the award-winning Berkshire Youth Choirs and a music mentor for the National Festival of Music for Youth, and is currently Director of Choirs at the Junior Department of Trinity College of Music.  He has also directed the Young Conductors’ Course for the Association of British Choral Directors.

Beckenham Chorale

Beckenham Chorale is a mixed voice choir of about 80 voices founded in 1960 and affiliated to Making Music and the Bromley Arts Council. It gives three concerts a year at St George’s Church Beckenham and rehearses each week broadly through the school year at the St George’s Church Hall.

With a varied repertoire it is best known for our spirited performances of the great and exciting choral works. In recent years, works performed include Bach ‘Magnificat’, Vivaldi ‘Gloria’, Orff ‘Carmina Burana’, Rossini ‘Stabat Mater’, Dvorak ‘Mass in D’, Tippett ‘A Child of our Time’, Handel ‘Messiah’ and Verdi ‘Requiem’.’

The Chorale engages professional soloists and orchestral instrumentalists, with whom we have a long association, to perform with the choir.

www.beckenhamchorale.org.uk

St Paul's Sinfonia

Chamber Orchestra

The re-opening of the magnificent baroque church of St Paul in Deptford, after four years of extensive restoration, enabled St Paul’s Sinfonia to launch its inaugural concert season in December 2004, bringing live high-quality classical music to the cultural scene of Lewisham and beyond.  After our first seven seasons, we spread our wings and moved slightly further afield, to Greenwich, Lewisham, Blackheath and Catford.

Conducted by Andrew Morley, St Paul’s Sinfonia consists of experienced and dynamic orchestral players from across London. We perform monthly concerts at venues across south London. The Sinfonia draws its repertoire from a wide range of musical styles, from Baroque and Classical to Romantic and Modern, and aims to combine classics of the chamber orchestra repertoire with more unusual and challenging works.

Our concert seasons have included a complete Beethoven symphony cycle and a Brahms cycle; tributes to such diverse composers as Richard Strauss, Britten, and Bernard Herrmann; and premieres from Elena Firsova, William Attwood, Mark Bowden, Anna Meredith, Timothy Jackson and Matt Rogers.

www.stpaulssinfonia.com



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