I dashed back from Gloucester on the train to get to the Bath Camerata’s 30th birthday concert in the Pump Room. Ten years ago the 20th birthday was celebrated at a Good Friday concert which I sang in. This time round the former members just took part (optionally) in one or two numbers, some of them playing glasses in Eriks Esenvalds’ Stars. We were however given a special seating area which confirmed (even allowing for the presence of partners) that there are an awful lot of former Camerata members around!
The music was drawn from the last 150 years or so, with several showpieces which had been used in competition. The centrepiece of the first half was Friede auf Erden by Schoenberg, which I once sang with the Exon Singers. Its equivalent in the second half was James MacMillan’s Miserere which used a variety of styles and made even the familiar Tone II plainchant seem fresh and new. But this being Camerata, the programme wasn’t all serious!
There are still several in Camerata from my time there, and the choir, now under Benjamin Goodson, made light of the difficulties, although one of the parts was not as blended as it could have been. The only real dampener on the evening was the absence of Nigel Perrin, who was convalescing after an operation.