David Ogden

Sunday 28 June at 7pm • Leigh Woods, Bristol As the light fades, Exultate Singers performs amongst the trees, around and aboard the boats of Luke Jerram’s Withdrawn installation, a partnership between the National Trust and Bristol European Green Capital 2015. Beautiful and atmospheric choral pieces celebrating the varied aspects of nature and the sea will echo around the clearing in harmony with the dusk chorus of the woodland’s birds. Tickets £15, available online from the National Trust or by phone on 0844 249 1895

The Royal School of Church Music has announced today that David is to receive the honorary award of Fellowship of the Royal School of Church Music. The award will be conferred at a ceremony as part of the RSCM Celebration Day in St Edmundsbury Cathedral on 3rd October 2015

A great video showing some of the wealth of arts and performances which were on display at Southmead Hospital’s Fresh Arts Festival in October 2014, including a performance by the Royal Mail Choir which starts at 8m 7s.

Saturday 20th June at 7.30pm, Colston Hall, Bristol

A concert with 250 singers and professional symphony orchestra celebrating the young and those who are young of heart. City of Bristol Choir is joined by Exultate Singers, Bristol Youth Choir, choristers from Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church Choir and the Bristol Ensemble.

Marking his 70th birthday, the celebrated composer John Rutter conducts his Mass of the Children, in which traditional texts are interspersed with settings of poems celebrating youth and life. The choirs and orchestra will also perform Jonathan Dove’s There was a child, a work which celebrates a life filled with vitality, energy and spirit. Singing the roles of Mother and Son are soprano Erica Eloff and the international star tenor Toby Spence. The concert is in aid of Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Appeal for Bristol Children’s Hospital.

Tickets are £40 / £30 / £20, with tickets for under 18s priced at £10 available online from City of Bristol Choir  or from Colston Hall box office (with booking fee) by phone on 0844 887 1500, online or from the Colston Hall box office in person. The box office is open for personal callers from Monday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm

Saturday 28th March at 7.30pm, St George’s Bristol

Given as part of the St George’s Easter Passion festival, Exultate Singers and the Lochrian Ensemble perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B minor, undoubtedly one of the greatest works in the choral repertoire.

Famous for the beauty and power of the vocal and orchestral writing, this monumental work incorporates elements from compositions that span many years of Bach’s career, developed and refined during his last years of life to create a masterpiece of the Baroque era.

Read the 365bristol.com review of the concert here

Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th March, Dartington Great Hall

David will lead a two-day workshop on Bach’s St John Passion for Dartington Community Choir which is open to all singers to attend. Over the weekend the workshop will cover all the choruses in detail, culminating in an informal performance of the work accompanied by piano duet. More details can be found at the Dartington Community Choir website.

To book your place, download the application form

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.