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Aylesbury Consort of Voices
4 January 2024 @ 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm
Tickets on the door (cash or card). Under 18s and carers go free
Doors open at 12:15 pm
Performers
Conductor
Ed Pitt Mansfield
Soprano
Annabella Rennison, Amanda Alvares, Lesley Vincent, Ellie Hawkes, Liz Norriss, Alison Kirk
Alto
Julie Turner, Kate Walker, Jane Thorburn, Fionnuala Prosser
Tenor
Bryn Jones, Michael Hawkes, Geoffrey Howell, Brian Tibbels
Bass
Nick Walker, Tim Johnson, David Booker
Notes on the performers
Aylesbury Consort of Voices was originally founded by Charles Pope in the 1950s, who was a former teacher at Aylesbury Grammar School and was actively involved in the Aylesbury music scene at that time, effectively establishing a whole variety of music groups including the Aylesbury Choral Society, and the Aylesbury Symphony Orchestra, which has enabled successive generations of musicians to enjoy his achievements and has greatly enriched the cultural life of the area.
Aylesbury Consort of Voices has evolved into a performance choir of hand-picked singers, performing music from the sixteenth century to the present day.
Kelvin Turner was Musical Director of the Aylesbury Consort of Voices between 2006 and 2023 until he decided it was time to leave and pursue his own singing activities . We are very fortunate to now have Edwin Pitt Mansfield as our guest conductor. Ed is a Singing Teacher, Conductor, Baritone and Examiner – well known as an established teacher and educator, frequently leading workshops and seminars across the UK. With a specialism in working with gifted teenagers and professional performers, he is Singing Teacher at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts, an examiner for Trinity College London, and Chair of The Association of Teachers of Singing (2022 – 2024).
Programme
Programme notes
Giovanni de Palestrina
Arise, Shine O Jerusalem
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 – 1594) was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music. The central representative of the Roman School, with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de Victoria, Palestrina is considered the leading composer of late 16th-century Europe.
Source: Wikipedia
Hubert Parry
Welcome Yule!
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (1848 – 1918), was an English composer, teacher and historian of music. As a composer he is best known for the choral song “Jerusalem”
Source: Wikipedia
William Llewellyn
Ding dong merrily on high
“Ding Dong Merrily on High” is a Christmas carol. The words are by the English composer George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848–1934).
Source: Wikipedia
Ola Gjeilo
Northern Lights
Ola Gjeilo is a Norwegian composer and pianist, living in the United States. He writes choral music, and has written for piano and wind symphony, publishing through Walton Music, Edition Peters, and Boosey and Hawkes.
Source: Wikipedia
Gruber (arr. Barry Rose)
Silent Night
“Silent Night” (German: “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht”) is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011.
Source: Wikipedia
Thomas Luis de Victoria
O Magnum Mysterium
O magnum mysterium has an associated plainchant melody, and in this form has been sung since the middle ages. However, the text has appealed to many composers over the years. Many of the most notable composers of the renaissance made settings, including William Byrd, Jacob Clemens non Papa, Cristóbal de Morales, D. Pedro de Cristo, Palestrina (article on the setting) and Tomás Luis de Victoria. Victoria went on to publish a mass based on his motet in 1592.
Source: Wikipedia
Peter Warlock
Bethlehem Down
“Bethlehem Down” is a Christmas carol composed in 1927 by British composer Peter Warlock. It is set to a poem written by journalist and poet Bruce Blunt.
Source: Wikipedia
Kenneth Leighton
Coventry Carol
The “Coventry Carol” is an English Christmas carol dating from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors.
Source: Wikipedia
Thomas W Talley, arr Bob Chilcott
Behold that star
Joyful & tuneful spiritual alternating between solo phrase and choral response.
Source: Wikipedia
James Bassi
Quem Pastores laudavere
Thou whom shepherds worshipped
Source: Wikipedia
Sally Beamish
In the stillness
Sally Beamish OBE (b. 1956) is a British composer and violist. Her works include chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music.
Source: Wikipedia
Rihards Dubra
Hodie christus natus est
Rihards Dubra (born 1964) is a Latvian composer. Many of his works are religiously influenced.
Source: Wikipedia
Howells
A spotless rose
A Spotless Rose is one of Howells’s most well-known and enduring works, a tender, if somewhat slight unaccompanied choral piece that encompasses much of Howells’s early choral writing and points towards the glories of Collegium Regale and beyond.
Source: Wikipedia
Ola Gjeilo
Ubi Caritas
“Ubi caritas” is a hymn of the Western Church, long used as one of the antiphons for the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday.
Source: Wikipedia
Francis Poulenc
O magnum mysterium
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (1899 – 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite Trois mouvements perpétuels (1919), the ballet Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959) for soprano, choir, and orchestra.
Source: Wikipedia
Jacibus Clemens non Papa
Magi veniunt ab oriente
The wise men came from the East.
Source: Wikipedia
Peter Cornelius
The three kings
The wise men came from the East.
Source: Wikipedia
Francis Poulenc
Hodie christus natus est
Today Christ is born