New CD release: Love Abide

Release date: 5th February 2013

Love Abide is a CD of choral works by Roxanna Panufnik on the Warner Classics Label on the theme of spiritual love- celebrating music, texts and chants of a diversity of faiths. As part of the compilation, David conducts Exultate Singers performing Panufnik’s setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in which she combines the words of the canticles with the Latin words of the Ave Maria. The work was commissioned jointly between Exultate Singers and St Mark’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, USA. The CD was released on 5th February 2013 and is available from Amazon, Crotchet, and Sainsbury’s Entertainment. It is also available to download from iTunes.

Splendours of Venice: Bristol Baroque Festival

Saturday 23rd March at 7.30pm, St George’s Bristol Exultate Singers is joined by one of the world’s leading period instrument ensembles for this concert of baroque music originally written for St Mark’s Venice. Experience the grandeur, opulence and drama of the wonderful multi-choir motets of Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Croce and Rigatti as the sound reverberates around the hall and balconies of St George’s. All the pieces are characterised by flamboyant operatic solos and virtuosic instrumental and choral writing, perfect for this Bristol Baroque Festival. Tickets £11-£21 with discounts for concessions, from St George’s box office on 0845 40 24 001

 

BBC Songs of Praise for Mother’s Day

 

BBC One, Sunday 10th March at 5.30pm David conducts BBC One’s Songs of Praise in a special programme for Mother’s Day. The music includes David’s Song of Ruth sung by Exultate Singers, and singers from Bristol Schools Chamber Choir and Westbury-on-Trym Parish Choir singing David’s setting of Faith, hope and love. The hymns sung by the congregation at St Alban’s Parish Church in Westbury Park include Now thank we all our God, For Mary mother of our Lord, For the beauty of the earth and John Bell’s Take this moment, sign and space. (Photograph Ken Kay / BBC)

Bristol International Jazz & Blues Festival

Saturday 2nd March 2013 at 2.15pm David directs a chorus of 180 voices from City of Bristol Choir, Exultate Singers, Bristol Schools Chamber Choir and Kidderminster Choral Society together with the Big Buzzard Boogie Band, vocalist Yolanda Quartey and tap dancer Junior Laniyan in a performance of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert in Bristol’s first International Jazz & Blues Festival. The performance takes place at the Colston Hall. Tickets £15 for adults, £5 for children under 18 from Colston Hall box office 0117 922 3686.

A Sense of the Divine – Exultate Singers

Saturday 23rd February 2013 at 7.30pm Sensational choral music to excite the senses including Tallis’ 40-part motet Spem in Alium; the sumptuous harmonies of 16th and 17th century motets and madrigals by Monteverdi and Gesualdo, and contemporary works including the premiere of a new commission from Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, James MacMillan’s Miserere Mei and the dramatic Fire Songs by Morten Lauridsen. Tickets are £12-£22 (£2 discount for concessions), and are on sale now from St George’s box office on 0845 40 24 001

A toe-tapping Come and Sing day

Saturday 16th February 2013, 11am-4pm Now in its 3rd successful year, join David, members of City of Bristol Choir and fellow fans of musicals and films for an unashamedly indulgent day of singing the blockbusting hits from The Lion King, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera and Oliver, together with pop songs by Adele. The day culminates in a grand (but very informal) showcase performed by the day’s cast accompanied by a live band.

Tickets are £12 for adult singers and £5 for under 18s (under 14s must be accompanied by an adult). Tickets are available to book now through St George’s box office by phone on 0845 40 24 001, in person at the box office or online at www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk

BBC Radio 4 – With Great Pleasure

Christmas Day at noon, BBC Radio 4 A festive edition of the programme which invites a celebrity to raid their memories in search of the pieces of writing and music which best sum up their lives. Fi Glover, one of the BBC’s most cherished radio presenters, steps up with a wonderfully varied selection of readings, from a nursery rhyme to Aristotle by way of Alan Bennett and John Mortimer. David and Exultate Singers provide the finishing celebratory touch. Repeated Friday 28 December at 9pm.

Songs of Praise – Advent Sunday

Sunday 2nd December at 4.45pm, BBC One David conducts Exultate Singers, Bristol Schools Chamber Choir and the boys and girls of Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church as well as congregational hymns in St Alban’s Church, Westbury Park for a special episode of Songs of Praise for the First Sunday of Advent (photograph Ken Kay / BBC)