Author: davidmtogden

Saturday 28th February at 7.30pm, St Alban’s Church, Westbury Park, Bristol

For its Spring concert, City of Bristol Choir presents a programme of wonderful choral music from Austria and Germany. The main work is Anton Bruckner’s colossal Mass in E minor for choir and fifteen wind and brass instruments. The work contrasts beautiful, unaccompanied, serene choral writing reminiscent of Palestrina with passages for full choir and ensemble overflowing with drama and intensity. The 100-strong choir is joined by Quorum, a professional ensemble made up of some of the South West’s leading brass and woodwind players.

£18 adults, £16 concessions, £5 students/under 18s available from www.cityofbristolchoir.org.uk and from Opus 13 music shop at 14 St Michael’s Hill, Bristol, telephone 0117 923 0164

Saturday 14th February at 7.30pm, St George’s Bristol

David conducts a programme of beautiful choral music on the theme of love. Sensuous motets by Renaissance masters Victoria and Palestrina setting words from the Song of Songs are contrasted with ravishing choral pieces by Finzi, Rütti, Whitacre and Daniel-Lesur. The choir will also give the world premiere of a new work by Bristol-based composer David Bednall, commissioned especially for this concert. Three Songs of Love sets words by John Clare, John McCrae and W.B. Yeats including his famous poem ‘The Cloths of Heaven’. Cellist Richard May and pianist Olena Shvetsova perform music by Chopin and Piazzolla. Tickets £12 to £24 from St George’s box office online or on 0845 40 24 001

BBC One, Sunday 30 November at 4.15pm David’s setting of Rowan Williams’ Advent Calendar will be performed on Songs of Praise by Exultate Singers and The Lochrian Ensemble

The new CD from Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church Choir will be released in December 2014 and is available to order now from the church’s website www.westbury-parish-church.org.uk/cd.php. The CD includes five pieces by David: We welcome you, written for Susanna’s baptism; Teach us, good Lord; Prayer of Mother Teresa; Christ is our cornerstone, written for Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church; and the Remembrance anthem, We will remember them. 

Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 December, St George’s Bristol 

Two glorious evenings of festive music performed by the 90 voices of City of Bristol Choir (Monday) and accomplished chamber choir Exultate Singers (Tuesday) under the baton of the entertaining conductor David Ogden, including sparkling arrangements of Christmas music for choir and orchestra, audience carols, readings and Christmas pieces for orchestra alone. Tickets from St George’s Bristol box office online at www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk or from 0845 40 24 001

Thursday 11th and Saturday 13th December, St James Priory, Bristol Exultate Singers performs an exquisite programme of Christmas music, the perfect preparation for the festive season. Come and enjoy a wonderfully atmospheric evening in the beautiful surroundings of Bristol’s oldest building, St James Priory. The programme includes unaccompanied traditional carols, audience carols and Christmas music for choir and harp. Tickets from www.exultatesingers.org or from Opus 13 music shop at 14 St Michael’s Hill, Bristol, telephone 0117 923 0164.

Wednesday 29 October at 3.30pm, BBC Radio 3 repeated on Sunday 2nd November at 3pm 

The music was chosen on an All Saints’ theme, with particular connections to Gloucester and the choir itself. The ‘Gloucester Service’ canticles were written especially by the broadcast by Millennium Youth Choir singer and Assistant Conductor Owain Park, and the Responses are by another member of the choir, Kerensa Briggs. A recent graduate of Bristol University, Kerensa is the daughter of David Briggs who is a former Organist of Gloucester Cathedral. The anthem We love the place, O God was written by Herbert Sumsion, who was also Organist of Gloucester Cathedral, but the piece was actually written for the choir of Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church in Bristol where David is now Director of Music. The final hymn is David Ogden’s arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ Sine nomine setting of For all the saints, which David wrote originally for the Millennium Youth Choir to sing on a BBC Songs of Praise programme in 2009. Daniel Moult’s thrilling and virtuosic organ voluntary was written for him by Ronald Corp.

The music list is as follows:

Introit: Holy is the true light (Harris)
Responses:  Kerensa Briggs
Psalms 148, 150 (Stanford)
First lesson:  Isaiah 65.17-25
Canticles: Gloucester Service (Owain Park)
Second lesson:  Hebrews 11.32-12.2
Anthems:  We love the place, O God (Sumsion)
Justorum animae (Stanford)
Hymn:  For all the saints (Sine nomine, arr David Ogden)
Organ Voluntary:  Festivo (Ronald Corp)

David Ogden (Director of Music)
Daniel Moult (Organist)

Saturday 11 October at 7.30pm, St Alban’s Church, Bristol City of Bristol Choir performs Handel’s youthful and vibrant work, Dixit Dominus, full of drama, passion and exquisitely beautiful vocal lines, and Vivaldi’s double choir setting of Beatus Vir with its flamboyant solo movements, vivid word painting and colourful choral textures. The choir is joined by professional orchestra The Lochrian Ensemble, who will perform Autumn from The Four Seasons – familiar, but always a wonderful listen with its rustic scenes of peasants, harvest dances and over indulgence in the local liquor, and a dramatic account of an Autumn hunt with horns, guns and hounds. Tickets are on sale now from Opus 13 music shop on 0117 923 0164 and online at www.cityofbristolchoir.org.uk

Carmina Burana with Bristol Metropolitan Orchestra
Saturday 15th November 2014 at 7.30pm, Colston Hall

A choir of 200 singers joins Bristol Metropolitan Orchestra for a memorable full-scale performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. With lyrics from the Middle Ages expressing earthly desires and a hearty enjoyment of life, and pulsating rhythms, full of passion and excitement, this is music of a primeval nature. David conducts the orchestra and singers from City of Bristol Choir, Bristol Schools Chamber Choir, Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church, Bristol Grammar School and St Peter’s Hospice Choir. Will Goodchild conducts the orchestra in performances of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture and Dvorak’s ever-popular symphony From the New World. This concert is given in aid of St Peter’s Hospice. Tickets £10.75 to £21.50 (including Colston Hall booking fee), on sale now from Colston Hall box office online or by phone on 0844 887 1500