Bristol Youth Choir perform James MacMillan’s Little Mass

James MacMillan credit Philip Gatward

Wednesday 10 February at 7.30pm, The Lighthouse, Poole
Thursday 11 February at 7.30pm, Colston Hall, Bristol

David is chorus master for singers from Bristol Youth Choir and from schools in and around Bristol who are part of the MacMillan Choir, formed especially for these performances of James MacMillan’s Little Mass with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

The Mass is major new choral work, co-commissioned by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from the man who has been called Britain’s greatest living composer. MacMillan’s music is passionate, sincere and charged with emotion. Kirill Karabits conducts the two performances.

More information about the performance on 10 February

More information about the performance on 11 February

We Will Remember Them on BBC One’s Songs of Praise

David’s setting of We Will Remember Them was performed by Exultate Singers and the Lochrian Ensemble in a special edition of Songs of Praise for Remembrance Sunday on 8 November. The piece starts at 13m48s into the programme and can be viewed on BBC iPlayer. David also conducts his arrangement of ‘Eternal Father strong to save’, sung by a congregation including members of City of Bristol Choir and Bristol Youth Choir at St Alban’s Church, Westbury Park.

The sheet music of We Will Remember Them can be ordered from Opus 13 music shop on 0117 923 0164 and from White Light Publishing. The piece was recorded by the choir of Holy Trinity Church, Bristol, conducted by David, on the CD ‘Sing My Soul’. Listen to a clip and order your copy here: www.westbury-parish-church.org.uk/cd.php

Salisbury Cathedral residency weekend

David conducts Exultate Singers in a return visit to sing the services at Salisbury Cathedral on 29th and 30th August. The organist for the weekend is Daniel Moult.

Saturday 29 August 2015

Evensong at 5.30pm
Reponses: Reading
Canticles: Second Service – Orlando Gibbons
Anthem: My lovely one – Gerald Finzi

Sunday 30 August 2015

Eucharist at 10.30am
Mass setting: Cantus Missae – Josef Rheinberger
Communion motet: Morning Prayers – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Evensong at 4.30pm
Responses: Reading
Magnificat à 12 – Andrea Gabrieli
Nunc dimittis: Tarik O’Regan
Anthem: The Lord is a sun and a shield – William Boyce

James MacMillan’s Seven Angels

seven-angels-cover

Saturday 7 November at 7.30pm, St George’s Bristol

Exultate Singers reveals visions of heaven in this Remembrance weekend concert. A tapestry of works in the first half includes transcendent works by James MacMillan and William Harris and Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei, his own arrangement of his Adagio for Strings. The choir also performs Ian Carpenter’s radiant setting of In Paradisum and John Rutter’s anthem Hymn to the Creator of Light, an homage to Herbert Howells, full of mystical intensity, which with its iridescent chromatic harmonies is reminiscent of Howells’ own music.

For the second half, the choir is joined by trumpets, shofars, percussion, harp and cello to perform James MacMillan’s extraordinary new work Seven Angels, a setting of vivid and intensely dramatic text from the Book of Revelation. Commissioned by Ex Cathedra, it was premiered in Birmingham in January 2015.

Tickets £12 to £24, students in full time education £6, under 18s £4, from Exultate Singers’ website or by phone on 0845 40 24 001

 

Rachmaninov All-Night Vigil

rachmaninov-coverSaturday 21 November at 7.30pm, St George’s Bristol

“Even in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined that I would write such a work.” So wrote Sergei Rachmaninov about his deeply moving All-Night Vigil, known as the Vespers, one of the choral masterpieces of the twentieth century which was premiered 100 years ago.

This performance will be given by the 100 voices of City of Bristol Choir, filling the candlelit hall with the sonorous sounds of Russian Orthodox music. Rachmaninov’s La Nuit and Pâques from the wonderful atmospheric Fantasie for Two Pianos complete the programme. Tickets £10 to £20, students in full time education and under 18s £5 from St George’s box office online or by phone on 0845 40 24 001