1 February 2009

Performers:
Croydon Philharmonic Choir
David Gibson, conductor
New London Sinfonia
Erica Eloff, soprano
Akiko Enomoto, mezzo soprano
Lynton Atkinson, tenor
Nicholas Warden, bass
Basingstoke Choral Society
Choristers of the Royal Russell School
Members of Bromley Youth Choirs

Start: 3:00PM
Venue: Fairfield Concert Hall, Croydon
Admission: £ 15 | £ 7.50 for under 16s

Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Choral Flourish, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Serenade to Music, Hodie This concert celebrates the memory of two great musicians. One with worldwide recognition, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the other the Founder of the Croydon Philharmonic Choir, Alan Kirby. Both died fifty years ago, RVW August 1958 and AK May 1959.

The programme contains some of Vaughan Williams most magical and interpretive music. Choral Flourish is a short piece and a rarity. Vaughan Williams composed this for a concert in The Royal Albert Hall, with choirs from all over the UK who were singing under the baton of Alan Kirby. Alan Kirby had founded the National Federation of Music Societies (now known as Making Music) and above the title of the Choral Flourish, Vaughan Williams had written To Alan Kirby.

The other two works are heart-stoppingly beautiful. The Fantasia has timeless magic and Serenade to Music transcendently weaves around Shakespeare’s words How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Vaughan Williams's Christmas Cantata Hodie provides a gripping blend of mysticism, heavenly glory and human hope through a brilliant mosaic of musical styles set to texts by Milton, Hardy and George Herbert which are bound together by a narration of the Gospel Nativity Story and sung by a children’s choir.