Albert Hall

#MfEMondays – Raising the roof at the Albert Hall

Music for Everyone

The combined voices of Nottingham Community Voices and the Nottingham Concert Orchestra put on a show-stopping, dazzling performance at the Albert Hall, Nottingham yesterday afternoon of hits from the stage and screen – including the foot-tapping Mamma Mia medley which raised the roof! ‘Thank you for the Music’ to all our singers…

We also had sparkling solos from our guests Kate Taylor and Simon Theobald and an incredibly moving solo of the Love Theme from Cinema Paradiso from MfE’s very own String Animateur Abigail Smith.

P.S. Don’t miss Vicky McClure’s ‘Our Dementia Choir’ on Thursday night, 8pm, featuring one of our Open Voices members, Bernard Marshall! Our Dementia Choir

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

29/04/2019

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#MfEMondays are Music for Everyone’s new weekly emails designed to keep you up to date with MfE events & to circulate interesting finds, special features, and motivational moments for your Mondays! We are aiming to send out something new each week.

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Missa Solemnis – final rehearsal and performance

Helena Durham

DSC01583 copyThe soloists – Paula Sides, Ciara Hendrick, Nick Pritchard and Tim Dickinson were a pleasure to work with, and superb singers, both individually and as a quartet. Thank you, Paula, for committing to come so soon after giving birth. Gorgeous baby, by the way! The orchestra was wonderful, and Helen Tonge played the violin solo so beautifully.

All the hard work put in by Angela Kay, the choir and orchestra over the weeks was well rewarded, and the odd minor glitch passed in a flash. A performance is not simply a matter of accuracy, rather of the musicians conveying the composer’s intent to the audience through their understanding of the piece, singing or playing it with feeling, variation in dynamic, tone, good diction etc. This musicality came across so well and fulfilled Beethoven’s inscription on the Missa Solemnis manuscript: From the heart – may it return to the heart. An audience member said afterwards, ‘I could just listen to that all over again. It was amazing.’ William Ruff, music critic for the Nottingham Post, seems to have agreed.

Many similar comments followed.  The choir had a real sense of achievement from having tackled one of the most challenging works in the choral repertoire. As the performance had proceeded without interruption, to enrich the audience’s experience, both audience and performers enjoyed a well deserved celebratory drink afterwards.

DSC01582 copy

 

The photographs were taken at the afternoon rehearsal.

Thanks too to the Albert Hall staff who were, as always, so obliging.

 

Angela Kay and the Missa Solemnis – Part 1

Helena Durham

Our roving reporter interviewed Angela about Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, which the Nottingham Festival Chorus will be performing in the Albert Hall, Saturday 6th February, 2016.

Here is the introduction, more to follow, including some very helpful guidance about learning the work at home, in the sectional rehearsal, and during the course.

HD: When did you first sing in a performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis?

AK: Well it was in 1978, I think March, with the Nottingham Harmonic Society conducted by Andrew Burnham, in the old Albert Hall Institute. Nearly thirty years ago.

HD: Or nearly forty years ago?

AK: You’re right. How time flies!

HD: Tell us a little about that experience.

AK: It was the first time I’d heard the work, I didn’t even know it existed really, and I thought it was fantastic, quite hard. Some bits are really easy and then other bits are absolute killers – fugues, because they’re so quick. There are still about 8 bars I’ve never known anybody sing properly. If you’re an alto, like me, you get to a certain page and you hear, “Can’t sing that bit.” [Laughs] But… with lots of slow practising…!

writing Angela's instruction into the score

Writing Angela’s instructions into a score

As you can see on my copy [from when I sang it], it has instructions written all over it, and beats in the bar for all the syncopated stuff. Fortunately, lots of it is doubled up in the orchestra.

HD: Do you have a favourite movement?

AK: Well the Credo and the Gloria are just wonderful, then from where the Praeludium starts and leads into the Benedictus, it has a divine violin solo, the basses sing a few notes and a quartet of soloists comes in, followed by the choir. A land of repose in all the excitement that’s going on. [Laughs again]

HD: What led you to choose this work for the Nottingham Festival Chorus?

AK: Well I thought it was about time we did something we could really get our teeth into, and I thought that no one else had done it for years, as far as I can remember. Or did the Bach Soc? Anyway, it will be a wonderful experience.

To be continued…