VENUE: All Hallow’s Church, Savernake Road, London NW3 2JP
SOPRANO: Sarah Gabriel
VIOLIN: Simon Blendis
PIANO: Saoko Blendis
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
VENUE: St Michael’s Church, South Grove, Highgate, London N6 6BJ
MEZZO SOPRANO: Carolyn Holt
BARITONE: Mark Nathan
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORGAN: Edward Batting
VENUE: All Hallows Church, Savernake Road, London NW3 2JP
SOPPRANO: Lucy Hall
MEZZO SOPRANO: Catherine Hopper
TENOR: William Morgan
BARITONE: Timothy Nelson
BASS: Dingle Yandell
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORCHESTRA: New London Orchestra
VENUE: St Michael’s Church, South Grove, Highgate, London N6 6BJ
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORGAN: Edward Batting
CHOIRS: St Michael’s C of E Primary School Choir
VENUE: All Hallows Church, Savernake Road, London NW3 2JP
SOPRANO: Eleanor Pennell-Briggs
MEZZO SOPRANO: Emma Jüngling
TENOR: Henry Ross
BASS: Sam Evans
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORCHESTRA: New London Orchestra
VENUE: All Hallows Church, Savernake Road, London NW3 2JP
SOPRANO : Alexandra Oomens
TENOR : William Morgan
BASS : William Thomas
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORCHESTRA: New London Orchestra
SOPRANO: Iúnó Connolly
BARITONE: Jacobo Ochoa
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORGAN: Edward Batting
VENUE: St Michael’s Church Highgate, South Grove, London N6 6BJ
HCS’s Spring concert presents an enduring French choral favourite together with English song settings of celebrated poems by the seventeenth century Anglican priest George Herbert – including a new commission by HCS, and a piece in anticipation of the upcoming 150th anniversary of Vaughan Williams’ birth.
VENUE: All Hallows Church, Savernake Road, London NW3 2JP
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORCHESTRA: New London Orchestra
VENUE: All Hallows Church, Savernake Road, NW3 2JP
SOPRANO Anita Watson
MEZZO SOPRANO Samantha Price
TENOR Frederick Jones
BARITONE Stephen Gadd
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORCHESTRA: New London Orchestra
Verdi’s Requiem is a setting of the Catholic funeral mass in seven movements scored for double choir, solo quartet and large orchestra. It was composed in honour of the memory of the Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni, who was greatly admired by Verdi and who, like Verdi, was a leader in the Risorgimento, the cultural and political movement for Italian independence and unification. The first performance, conducted by Verdi himself, was given in the church of San Marco in Milan on the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death, 22 May 1874, and received immediate acclaim. A second performance, also conducted by Verdi, followed three days later at La Scala in Milan.
Today, Verdi’s Requiem is the most performed major choral work in the repertoire – a choral tour de force fitting for HCS and its supporters to celebrate a long-anticipated return to live performance.
VENUE: St Michael’s Church, South Grove, Highgate London N6 6BJ
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORGAN: Edward Batting
CHOIRS: New London Children’s Choir and St Michael’s C of E Primary School Choir
Join Highgate Choral Society for its annual family carol concert; an unmissable event!
VENUE: All Hallows Church, Savernake Road, London NW3 2JP
SOPRANO: Mary Bevan
MEZZO
SOPRANO: Catherine Hopper
TENOR: James Way
BARITONE: Sam Evans
CONDUCTOR: Ronald Corp
ORCHESTRA: New London Orchestra
VENUE: Royal Festival Hall
SOPRANO: Julia Doyle
MEZZO SOPRANO: Renata Pokupic
TENOR: Benjamin Hulett
BASS: David Shipley
CONDUCTOR: Brian Wright
ORCHESTRA: Philharmonia Orchestra
The power of massed choirs – Highgate Choral Society, Goldsmith’s Choral Union, English Concert Chorus and The London Chorus – joining with the talents of four internationally acclaimed soloists and the esteemed Philharmonia Orchestra for an unforgettable evening of music.
VENUE: Barbican Hall
SOPRANO: Lauren Fagan
MEZZO SOPRANO: Kathryn Rudge
TENOR: Oliver Johnston
BARITONE: Morgan Pearse
PIANO: Daniel Lebhard
CONDUCTOR: Oliver Gooch
ORCHESTRA: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Members of Highgate Choral Society, Goldsmiths Choral Union and The London Chorus
Orff’s choral classic performed alongside Wagner’s Prelude to Act III Lohengrin and Saint-Saëns Symphony no 3
HCS’s July concert programme presents a feast of sacred choral music from the Baroque period, including both familiar and less well-known pieces by contemporaries of Bach.
Vivaldi’s Magnificat in G Minor (RV 610) is a setting of the Song of Mary from the gospel of St Luke. Scored for mixed choir, solo voices and small orchestra in nine movements, the earliest version was probably composed in 1715 for the Ospedale della Pietà – the orphanage in Venice where Vivaldi was employed as violin master. Though much less well-known than his Gloria, Vivaldi’s Magnificat is no lesser a work in displaying the brilliance of the Venetian maestro.
Vivaldi’s Gloria in D (RV 589) is the best known of his settings of the joyful hymn of praise Gloria in excelsis Deo. Written during the period of Vivaldi’s employment at the Pietà, the theatrical Gloria’s twelve brief movements combine drama and tenderness in equal measure.
The Magnificat in B flat attributed to Pergolesi is among the most familiar pieces of eighteenth century Italian sacred music. This charming work of simple beauty is now widely accepted as being the work of Francesco Durante, the renowned Neapolitan composer who was Pergolesi’s teacher.
Jan Dismas Zelenka was an eighteenth century Bohemian composer employed at the court at Dresden, whose work was admired by his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach. Zelenka completed his Litaniae de Venerabile Sacramento in C Major (ZWV 147) in 1727. Scored for mixed choir, solo voices and small orchestra, this masterly setting of a less familiar liturgical text is all too rarely performed today.
HCS’s May concert programme is a scintillating mix of English and Spanish music, reflecting the choir’s forthcoming tour to Seville and Córdoba.
Elgar’s Sea Pictures sets to music five poems about the sea, including one by Elgar’s wife Alice. The song cycle was composed mainly in 1899 and received its first performance the same year. Originally for contralto voice and piano quintet, HCS will sing the sparkling arrangement for choir and orchestra by Donald Fraser.
Ronald Corp’s Missa Andalucía is a new HCS commission that will receive first performances in Córdoba’s famous cathedral-mosque and two churches in Seville, as part of the choir’s tour in early May. It quotes themes from works by the sixteenth century composers Morales, Guerrero and Lobo, all of whom were born in Seville.
The Spanish theme continues with two outstanding sacred motets for choir and organ – O Vos Omnes by the twentieth century Spanish cellist and composer Pablo Casals and Ecce Sacerdos by the sixteenth century Spanish composer Victoria – and with evocative Spanish songs, including works by Granada and Falla, and Spanish lute songs, sung by counter-tenor Magid El-Bushra.
Complementing these Spanish pieces are two gems of twentieth century English music for choir and organ – Edward Elgar’s Give Unto The Lord from Psalm 29, and Herbert Howells’ Like as the Hart Desireth the Waterbrooks from Psalm 42 – as well as Benjamin Britten’s Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria for solo organ.
Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, so-named as it uses a ninth century text written in Old Church Slavonic, is also known as the Slavonic Mass. Rather than a traditional sacred piece, Janáček is thought to have conceived his mass as a celebration of Slavic culture and the pan-Slavic movement that he supported.The Glagolitic Mass was first performed in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in April 1926. It is a highly original work for choir, organ and orchestra that expresses dramatic energy and tenderness in equal measure, and is recognised today as one of most significant contributions to choral music in the twentieth century.
Poulenc’s Gloria is a joyful rendering of the Gloria text from the Catholic Mass, and one of Poulenc’s most celebrated works. Scored for soprano, choir and large orchestra, it was composed in 1959 and first performed in 1961 in Boston to critical acclaim. Poulenc was known for composing music of sharp contrasts and his Gloria, which is jocund as well as solemn, is no exception.
Always Moving On is a brand new work for choir and orchestra, written by newcomer Christopher Ashley. An eight-minute orchestral march of aspiration and healing, it provides a modern twist to the familiar and popular format pioneered by Elgar and Walton in the early 20th century. The piece gives expression to the timeless virtues of hope, joy, patience and tolerance, offering respite from uncertainty and gloom.
Highgate Choral Society’s annual family carols concert has become an unmissable event, with plenty of variety and audience participation, plus your first taste of mince pies and mulled wine of the season! Early booking is advised as this is always a sell-out.
Beethoven’s great Missa Solemnis is thought to have been intended for the occasion of the installation of his friend and patron Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmütz in 1820. But from the first, Beethoven saw it as an expression of his own deep spiritual convictions and as an enduring testament to the ardour of his faith.
First performed in St. Petersburg on 24 April 1824, the Missa Solemnis is regarded as a supreme achievement in choral music. Beethoven famously inscribed on the first page of the score: "From the heart – may it return – to the heart."
Ina Boyle’s Soldiers at Peace is a short, rarely performed setting for choir and orchestra of a war sonnet by Herbert Asquith, second son of the British Prime Minister. Written during the First World War, it was performed in 1920 and enthusiastically received. Ina Boyle was Ireland’s most significant women composer before the 1950s, whose early talent was recognised by teachers including Vaughan Williams.
Although we associate the person we have come to know as Santa Claus with the celebration of Christmas, Britten‘s St Nicolas was commissioned to celebrate the centenary of Lancing College, Sussex and was given its first official performance there in July 1948. However, there had been an unofficial première six weeks earlier as part of the opening concert for the first ever Aldeburgh Festival. Both were conducted by the composer, with the role of Nicolas sung by Britten’s partner, Peter Pears, a former pupil at the College.More than two centuries earlier Joseph Haydn composed his St Nicholas Mass to celebrate the nameday, 6th December, of his employer, Prince Nicolaus Esterházy. The Mass follows the usual format of Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei and while it is comparatively short it shares all the trademarks of joy, vivacity and tunefulness as the masses he wrote in his old age.
2018 marks the centenary of the birth of composer, conductor, author, music lecturer and pianist Leonard Bernstein, whose most famous scores include West Side Story, On the Town, Candide and On the Waterfront.Commissioned from Bernstein by the Dean of Chichester Cathedral for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival, the Chichester Psalms received its UK premiere on 31st July 1965 and has gone on to become a highly popular staple of choral societies to this day. Consisting of three short movements, the Chichester Psalms is sung in Hebrew.
Our programme of 20th- and 21st-century compositions is completed with choral works by Janáček, Morten Lauridsen and Vaughan Williams.
"The horse and his rider hath He thrown in to the sea." These are the final words of Israel in Egypt, which sets to music passages from the Old Testament Book of Exodus and Psalms. The libretto is believed to have been prepared by Charles Jennens, who was also to compile the biblical texts for Messiah a few years later.
Frogs, pestilence, flies, lice, locusts, hailstones, fire, darkness and the parting of the Red Sea all feature in this extraordinarily dramatic oratorio, composed by Handel in one month.
HCS musical director Ron Corp shares his thoughts on Handel’s work in this video.
Highgate Choral Society’s annual family carols concert has become an unmissable event, with plenty of variety and audience participation, plus your first taste of mince pies and mulled wine of the season! Early booking is advised as this is always a sell-out.
Free pre-concert talk by Ronald Corp at 6.20pm.
Works written for two very different occasions form the opening concert in Highgate Choral Society’s 2017-2018 season. Following the recovery from illness of his fiancée, Constanze Weber, Mozart promised to write a mass of thanksgiving. Although it was never completed the Mass in C minor was premièred, in its incomplete state, with Constanze as one of the soprano soloists, in Salzburg on 26th October 1783 and harks back to the Baroque world of Handel and Bach.
Originally commissioned by the Polish-born art collector Bronislaw Krystall to write a requiem commemorating his wife’s death, Karol Szymanowski decided to change the contract and instead composed what is considered to be his greatest masterpiece. The inspiration for his Stabat Mater was the tragic death of his niece, Alinka and the subsequent suffering of his pregnant sister, who was soon to lose another child. Completed in 1926, Stabat Mater is of fundamental importance in the history of Polish music after Chopin.
Carl Orff popular favourite, Carmina Burana plus other works to be confirmed.
Highgate Choral Society begins its 2015-2016 season with Verdi’s highly dramatic Requiem. The terrifying (and instantly recognizable) Dies irae which introduces the traditional sequence of the Latin funeral rite is repeated throughout. Verdi uses vigorous rhythms, sublime melodies and dramatic contrasts to express the powerful emotions engendered by the text.
At the time of its premiere in 1874 it was not particularly favourably reviewed, with criticism ranging from “an opera in ecclesiastical robes” to a religious work in “dubious musical costume.” It is currently one of the most popular works in the entire choral canon.
Come and join us for our annual concert of carols for all the family. As well as many seasonal favourites there are more unusual offerings from Howard Skempton, John Rutter and the 18th century Czech composer František Xaver Brixi.
The opening concert in our 2016-2017 season has a sombre feel, commemorating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. Starting with The Banks of Green Willow by George Butterworth, who was killed in action on 5th August 1916, aged only 31, this work is complemented by Ronald Corp’s The Somme – a lament, part of a larger work by Corp entitled Dawn on the Somme.
The mood lifts with the choral arrangement of Serenade to Music by Butterworth’s contemporary, Vaughan Williams and the programme is brought to a close with Brahms’s glorious German Requiem.
Possibly inspired by the death of his mother in 1865, Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem, To Word of the Holy Scriptures, Op. 45 is the composer’s longest composition. In contrast to the traditional Roman Catholic requiem mass, which begins with prayers for the dead, A German Requiem focuses on the living, beginning with the text ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted’ from the Beatitudes. This theme, transition from anxiety to comfort is central to the work.
The text of Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music is an adaptation of the discussion about music and the music of the spheres in Act V, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare.
There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdst
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims.
Vaughan Williams wrote the piece as a tribute to the conductor Sir Henry Wood to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Wood’s first concert. The solo parts were composed specifically for the voices of sixteen eminent British singers chosen by Wood and the composer, but Vaughan Williams subsequently made arrangements for four soloists plus choir and orchestra, for choir and orchestra, for choir and piano, and for orchestra alone.
Promoted by Raymond Gubbay
We often perform alongside international stars as part of the Raymond Gubbay concerts. This rousing piece is one of our – and the public’s! – favourites!
Our annual Christmas concert invites the whole community to join us, with the St Michael’s School junior choir and also the New London Children’s Choir and make merry! Carols and music will include some old favourites as well as some you may not know. It’s just the event to begin the run up to Christmas, so join us!
Promoted by Raymond Gubbay
The majesty of the Royal Albert Hall provides the perfect setting for Handel’s choral masterpiece, again one of our regular appearances as part of the Raymond Gubbay concerts
Promoted by Raymond Gubbay
An unmissable all-Beethoven programme featuring the monumental ‘Choral’ symphony with its climactic ‘Ode to Joy’.
Our first concert of 2017 is an all-British affair featuring two towering figures of 20th-century music, Delius and Elgar.
The concert begins with the highly attractive Walk to the Paradise Garden, an orchestral interlude from Delius’s opera, A Village Romeo and Juliet. The motion of waves is suggested throughout by the orchestra in Sea Drift, while the choir sings the tale of a pair of mocking birds nesting on the sea shore in a setting by Walt Whitman.
In The Music Makers Elgar also sets an entire poem, Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy, to much original music punctuated with quotes from previous compositions including The Dream of Gerontius, Sea Pictures, the First Symphony, the Enigma Variations and Rule, Britannia.
Throughout 2017 the 50th anniversary of the death of Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály is being marked. In 1945, while hiding with his wife and many others in the cellar of the Budapest Opera House during the Nazi occupation, he completed his Missa Brevis, which had originally been an organ mass. Its first performance was in the cloakroom of the Opera House, later receiving its official première at the 1948 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester.
By the time of this concert Highgate Choral Society will have been on its tenth tour abroad, to Naples, Sorrento and Pompeii, where they will have performed sacred and secular pieces by Finzi, Mascagni, Rossini, Vaughan Williams and Verdi, as well as Campion, Palestrina and Tallis.
The soloist in the Missa Brevis will be young soprano Iúnó Connolly, who will also sing a selection of English and Italian songs accompanied by organist Edward Batting.
When the first recording of Mass in Blue was released in 2006, MusicWeb International ended its review thus: “Choral singers and directors on the lookout for enriching their choir’s choice should get this, as should anyone who appreciates a well-themed piece of sung music that brings off the balance between accessibility and sustained creative delight.” Premièred in 2003, Mass in Blue, scored for soprano solo, choir, piano, bass and drum kit, has gone on to receive performances throughout the world.
Perhaps this will happen to Two or Three Angels too? To complement the Mass, Highgate Choral Society has commissioned an exciting new work for soprano and double choir from “one of the brightest young talents to emerge in recent years”, Russell Hepplewhite (Evening Standard Top 1000 most influential Londoners). Consisting of 12 movements, Two or Three Angels sets to music poetry by William Blake, Rabindranath Tagore, Emily Dickinson, W B Yeats, Stephen Crane, James Henry Leigh Hunt, John Keats and Henry van Dyke. 1 July 2017 will be its first performance.