Author Archives: vhk10

an extract from the gardening songbook

Posted on October 16, 2024 by vhk10

At some point I should post about the selection of songs I occasionally sing snatches of while gardening because of their appropriateness. I selected one – used as I pull up bindweed – for my contribution to the second recital … Continue reading →

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the composer from Frome

Posted on September 30, 2024 by vhk10

Christ Church Bath is hosting another Saturday afternoon recital series this autumn and (having missed all of last year’s) I went to the opening concert, given by the strings of the Trowbridge Symphony Orchestra with David Winters on organ and … Continue reading →

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the other 2024 anniversary

Posted on September 16, 2024 by vhk10

Visiting London for a conference, I was able to take in the only Prom of the season with any hardcore Second Viennese School in it, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tarmo Peltokoski. Schoenberg’s anniversary has not received a … Continue reading →

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hosting a visiting choir

Posted on September 5, 2024 by vhk10

We aren’t on the visiting choir circuit (the last one to come I think was a joint effort 11 years ago), but we did have a guest choir at the end of the summer break, Suzi Digby’s Voce Chamber Choir … Continue reading →

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recapitulating the wedding

Posted on August 12, 2024 by vhk10

Bath Abbey Chamber Choir made the second of its Cathedral visits, a rather shorter distance to Bristol Cathedral, where the quire is full of scaffolding and the organ has been dismantled, so we were in temporary stalls in front, and … Continue reading →

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Kentish apples

Posted on July 30, 2024 by vhk10

Rochester was a Cathedral I sang in early on, and in fact I think it may have been the first Cathedral the Erleigh Cantors ever went to. Certainly it was one of my earliest excursions with them. And neither the … Continue reading →

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favourite hymns

Posted on July 8, 2024 by vhk10

I’m not going to actually reveal my favourites here; they change from day to day, and I also have some definite un-favourites! We hosted an evening of ‘favourite hymns and the stories behind them’ led by Pam Rhodes, in aid … Continue reading →

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Psalm 121 (Howells)

Posted on June 30, 2024 by vhk10

Bristol Choral Society’s season ended with a performance of Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi in the Bristol Beacon, for which we were joined by the return visit of some members of the Hannover Oratorienchor. This was my second performance of this work … Continue reading →

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Abbey round-up: May/June 2024

Posted on June 20, 2024 by vhk10

Bath Abbey Chamber Choir these days is being given quite a mix of services to sing, not just 9.30 am ones as it looked like at one time. May began with an evensong which included Ireland’s canticles in F, which … Continue reading →

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an electronic hymn board

Posted on May 25, 2024 by vhk10

Next stop was Prague, a city I’d never previously visited. On Sunday I went to the main Mass at Our Lady before Týn, where the choir located in the west gallery) was accompanied by an orchestra of significant size – … Continue reading →

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May is Mary’s month

Posted on May 16, 2024 by vhk10

The Erleigh Cantors usually perform a concert in May, and this year it was decided to honour the Marian connexion (our reader read the poem by Hopkins on this theme). We did so with a large number of mostly short … Continue reading →

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Psalm 121 (Mendelssohn)

Posted on May 8, 2024 by vhk10

The summer concerts of Bristol and Gloucester Choral Societies were nearly two months apart, but both include settings of this text. First up was Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Gloucester (where it was assigned to the Cathedral choir, singing ‘offstage’ in the … Continue reading →

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