Past Concerts

"Smiles of a Summer Night" Wiltshire Music Centre Saturday 9 July, 2011 7.30pm Sandra Porter, mezzo-soprano William Robert Allenby, bass-baritone Steven Hollas, piano Gavin Carr, conductor A summer evening's entertainment of ‘Songs from the Shows’- choruses and medleys from Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, Carousel, and South Pacific, together with highlights from Bernstein and Sondheim, including West Side Story and A Little Night Music. With highly engaging soloists to add spice to the mix, this will be a night of beautiful music, great fun, and a little pathos for good measure. Paul Carr: Requiem for an Angel Fauré: Requiem Bath Abbey Saturday April 9 2011 7.30 pm Eleanor Bowers-Jolley, soprano Derek Welton, baritone Bath Phil Gavin Carr, Conductor. Paul Carr’s Requiem for an Angel, written in memory of the composer’s mother, combines texts from the Requiem Mass in English and Latin with poetry by Emily Dickinson and Jack Carson, in music which is instantly appealing as well as deeply moving. The premiere recording on Stone Records, also conducted by Gavin Carr, was chosen as Classic FM’s CD of the Week in November 2010. First performed in 2006, this will be the first chance to hear Requiem for an Angel in Bath. Also in the programme is the much loved Requiem by Gabriel Fauré, which formed one source of inspiration for Paul Carr’s work. See a video preview of Requiem for an Angel   Brahms: A German Requiem Bath Abbey Saturday October 9, 2010 at 7.30 pm Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem (piano duet version) Franz Schubert: Fantasie in F minor (piano duet) Elenor Bowers-Jolley Soprano Jonathan Sells Baritone Chris Dowie, Steven Hollas Piano Duet Gavin Carr conductor ‘I will comfort you, even as a mother comforteth her child….’ In ‘A German Requiem’ Brahms sets a series of biblical passages about mourning, consolation, and hope, in some of the most beautiful and moving choral music ever composed. Originally written with a full orchestral accompaniment, Brahms later made an arrangement for soloists, choir and piano duet which presents the work in a more intimate form, exposing the loveliness of the choral writing. To complete the programme, our two pianists – who among their many other talents are the repetiteurs for Bath Minerva Choir and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus – will perform Schubert’s major work for piano duet, the Fantasia in F Minor. Beethoven Mass in C Bath Abbey Saturday April 24, 2010, at 7.30 pm Beethoven – Overture, Leonora no 3 Haydn – Trumpet Concerto Beethoven – Mass in C, Op 86 Crispian Steele-Perkins, trumpet Kishani Jayasinghe, soprano Jeanette Ager, mezzo-soprano James Oxley, tenor Paul Reeves, bass Bath Phil Gavin Carr, Conductor Beethoven’s Mass in C is less well known than it deserves to be, probably overshadowed by the extraordinary Missa Solemnis. It contains some of his most beautiful vocal writing and is a major work which we are very excited to be reviving in Bath. We are also delighted to continue our association with the great trumpet virtuoso, Crispian Steele-Perkins, who will play Haydn’s ever popular concerto and has also promised to perform the famous trumpet call in the Leonora no 3 Overture! Tickets £28 £20 and £10. £5 reduction on each price for under 18s. On sale from February 22 from Bath Festivals Box Office 01225 463362 www.bathfestivals.org.uk An English Christmas St Swithin’s Church,The Paragon, Bath Saturday December 12 th, 2009 at 7.30 pm. The programme will include Britten A Ceremony of Carols Britten Simple Symphony Finzi In Terra Pax Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols Carols for Choir and Audience Elenor Bowers-Jolley, Soprano John Savournin, Baritone with Bath Phil, Gavin Carr Conductor A popular programme of twentieth century English music for Christmas, with strings and harp, in the lovely eighteenth century setting of the newly refurbished St Swithin’s, Walcot. There will also be carols for choir and audience to join in! Tickets £15 unreserved, children (to 18) £5, from Bath Festivals Box Office 01225 463362 www.bathfestivals.org.uk   Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony In aid of RNLI with The Athenaeum Singers of Warminster The Mid-Somerset Orchestra Wells Cathedral Saturday 11th July 2009, 7.00pm Mendelssohn - Overture The Hebrides Stanford - Fourth Irish Rhapsody Soprano Amanda Roocroft Baritone George von Bergen Conductor Gavin Carr A Sea Symphony is an alliance of souls between Vaughan Williams noblehearted Englishness and Walt Whitman’s ecstatic free-thinking liberality. From the opening page we hear and feel the spray of the sea through massed forces of choir and full orchestra. This concert raised over £9,000 for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the charity that saves lives at sea. In the photograph conductor Gavin Carr presents a cheque to the RNLI at their Poole HQ.

Voices and Brass with Bristol Brass Consort St Mary’s Bathwick Saturday 21st March 2009, 7.30pm Rutter - Gloria Purcell - Funeral Music for Queen Mary, Hear my prayer, O Lord Susato – Dances for Brass Consort Bruckner – Os Justi; Christus Factus Est; Ecce Sacerdos Barber – Let Down the Bars, O Death; Easter Chorale Rutter – Gloria Conductor Lucy Griffiths A choir of over a hundred voices, the South West’s leading brass consort, and the mighty organ of St Mary’s, Bathwick, present a dramatic programme on themes of Grief and Glory. Including Purcell’s solemnly moving Funeral Music, Bruckner’s blazing motet with brass ‘Ecce Sacerdos’, Barber’s Easter Chorale and ending with John Rutter’s popular and powerful Gloria.

Twentieth Century American Choral Masterpieces with Bath Phil Bath Abbey Saturday 22nd November 2008, 7.30pm Bernstein - Chichester Psalms Lauridsen - Lux Aeterna Copland - Quiet City Paul Carr - Air for Chamber Orchestra (first performance) Counter-Tenor Kevin Beckett Organ Steven Hollas Conductor Gavin Carr The Chichester Psalms contain some of Bernstein’s liveliest and most heartfelt music. The eclectic mix of jazzy and religious idioms really stimulate! Lux Aeterna is one of the most beautiful things ever written for choir - hauntingly lovely, very much of the moment in its spiritual values.

VIVA VERDI! OPERA GALA
choruses and arias by Giuseppe Verdi and his contemporaries.

Sunday June 22 2008, 4.00 pm

Bath Minerva Choir
with Bath Philharmonia

Conductor Gavin Carr
Soprano Gweneth Ann Jeffers
Tenor Robert Gardiner

VIVA VERDI! is the title chosen for this afternoon of operatic excitement.

It's about PASSION! LOVE! DEATH! and MATADORS IN TIGHT PANTS!
The programme includes popular favourites including the anvil chorus, La Donna è mobile and the Matadors’ Chorus.  

Programme

Ikons of Serenity: Sacred choral music in the Russian Orthodox tradition,
by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Grechaninov and Sir John Tavener

Saturday 26 th April at 7.30m in Bath Abbey.

A new baton is conducting Bath Minerva Choir. Gavin Carr is leading the team to a new tune and producing a powerful new sound. Their first concert together will feature cellist Tim Hugh.

“IKONS of Serenity” is the title chosen for this largely a capella concert featuring the music of Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Tavener. Conductor Gavin Carr says: “I really wanted to choose a programme of music that would help me get to know the choir and that would help this fine choir, with over 100 voices, to work in harmony as a team. The harmonic richness and meditative atmosphere of this kind of music is a perfect vehicle for getting to know one another, and introduces a new era for Bath Minerva Choir in the marvellous setting of Bath Abbey.”

Verdi’s Requiem with the Bristol Schools' Philharmonia

Saturday 1st December 2007 at Bristol Cathedral
Thursday 6th December at The Forum, Bath

Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem
Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème, closing scene from Act 1.

Lesley-Jane Rogers, Soprano
Jeanette Ager, Alto
Andrew Sritheran, Tenor
Craig Bissex, Bass
Bath Minerva Choir
Bristol Schools' Philharmonia

Jason Thornton Conductor
Mark Finch Conductor

These concerts were supported by a grant from Awards for All, awarding funds from The National Lottery.

Mozart's Requiem at Bath Abbey

Saturday June 9th 2007

Rehearsing the Mozart Requiem, May 2007

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem (Süssmayer completion)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings

Lesley-Jane Rogers, Soprano
Louise Mott, Alto
Philip O’Brien, Tenor
Benjamin Bevan, Baritone

Bath Philharmonia
Jason Thornton, Conductor

Duruflé’s Requiem at Wilton and Frome

March 2007

Maurice Duruflé : Requiem
Anton Bruckner: Graduals
César Franck: Organ works

Steven Hollas, Organ
Marlene Powell, Soprano
Paul Feldwick, Baritone
Jason Thornton, Conductor

Maurice Duruflé was the organist at St Etienne du Mont in Paris. He is mainly remembered today for his serene and enigmatic setting of the Requiem Mass, with a strong plainchant influence and a flowing and virtuosic organ accompaniment.

An English Christmas at Edington Priory Church

Saturday December 9th, 2006

Gwion Thomas, Baritone
Steven Hollas, Organ
Bath Minerva Choir
Bath Philharmonia Chamber Ensemble
Jason Thornton, Conductor.

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Five Mystical Songs
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols
George Frideric Handel: Pastoral Symphony from Messiah
George Frideric Handel: Organ Concerto in G Minor

Felix Mendelssohn: Elijah

April 29th 2006 in Bath Abbey

Bath Minerva Choir,
Bath Philharmonia, Conductor: Jason Thornton

Elijah: Sir Willard White
Soprano: Lesley Jane Rogers
Alto: Jeanette Ager
Tenor: Roy Rashbrook
Bass: Stephen Foulkes

We had the privilege of singing this wonderful piece with one of the world’s greatest baritones, in a packed Abbey.

The Bath Chronicle wrote: ‘The augmented choir performed with great spirit, singing with real sparkle and commitment… This was a memorable musical occasion, under Jason Thornton’s inspirational direction’.

Franz Joseph Haydn: The Creation Saturday, October 7th at The Forum, Bath Bath Philharmonia - Conductor Jason Thornton, with with Nicki Kennedy - Soprano, Andrew Yeats - Tenor, Roland Davitt - Bass After Elijah, another of the most dramatic oratorios ever written. One of the great choral masterpieces of Haydn’s old age, The Creation brings to life the whole story of the creation of the world, from the opening depiction of Chaos and ‘Let there be light’, to the pastoral romance of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. ‘Haydn alone has the secret both of making me smile and of touching my innermost soul’. W A Mozart