7.30pm, St John’s Church, Carrington, Saturday 12th October 2024

Nottingham Chamber Singers present:

Come, Comfort of the World: Songs of Hope and Consolation

A concert bringing the vitality and expressive detailing of a chamber choir performance to the presentation of works of hope and consolation.

Bach’s intimate Komm, Jesu, Komm takes us from earthly despair to comfort in the hope of heaven. Reger’s beautiful motet, with its rich, subtly shifting harmonies, evokes the restfulness of night and soothes away worldly cares. Brahms’ well-loved Requiem, both dramatic and comforting, appears in a fresh light in this chamber music version, with piano duet, the rarely-heard format which Brahms designed for the first London performance in 1871.

Performers

Formerly known as the East of England Singers, the Nottingham Chamber Singers have a busy concert schedule performing works across the full choral range, from William Byrd to Judith Weir. The choir’s refreshingly dynamic and committed performances continue to receive critical and public acclaim, led by Assistant conductor and Music for Everyone’s Assistant Artistic Director, Rachel Parkes.

Alison Rose, soprano

Alison is the winner of the 2015 Maggie Teyte Prize and a 2017 Leonard Ingrams Award. She is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio, and is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

Operatic roles include; Papagena, Die Zauberflöte (Glyndebourne Festival Opera); Barbarina, Le nozze di Figaro (Garsington Festival Opera & English National Opera); Governess,The Turn of the Screw (Bury Court Opera); Vixen, The Cunning Little Vixen (Grimeborn Festival / Arcola Theatre); Lady in Waiting, Gloriana (St Endellion Festival with Martyn Brabbins); Miranda, Arnold’s The Dancing Master (GSMD); Bětuška, Dvořák’s The Cunning Peasant (GSMD); Servilia, La Clemenza di Tito (RNCM).

Concert highlights include Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music at the BBC Last Night of the Proms, Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall, Britten’s Les Illuminations at the Southwell Music Festival and solo recitals at the Oxford Lieder Festival and the Royal Opera House Crush Room. Recent highlights include her debut with Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Mahler’s Symphony no.4 at the Southwell Music Festival and Britten’s Les Illuminations with Sian Edwards for the Lewes Festival of Song. Further performances include her debut with Opera North on their Whistle Stop Opera tour, and a return to ENO for a Studio Live production of Judith Weir’s Blonde Eckbert.

Alison continues her studies in London with Gary Coward.

William Burn, baritone

Baritone William Burn enjoys a busy career as a performer of oratorio and consort music from the Middle Ages to contemporary music. A native of Oxfordshire, he trained as a choral scholar at King’s College, London, then moving to live in Nuremberg, Germany, and finally settling in the East Midlands.

William has performed many oratorio roles, including the Bach Passions, Messiah, Judas Maccabeus, The Creation (including under the baton of Sir Nicholas McGegan at Nottingham Royal Concert Hall), Elijah, Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs, Dvorak Stabat Mater, Elgar The Dream of Gerontius, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater and the requiems by Verdi, Mozart, Faure and Duruflé. Staged opera performances include Dido and Aeneas, Acis and Galatea, Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne, and Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley as part of the Ross­on­Wye International Festival.

A particular area of interest for song and Lieder, with recent programmes including Winterreise, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Opus 24 and 39 cycles, Richard Rodney Bennett’s Songs Before Sleep, Wolf’s Michaelangelolieder and Quilter’s Seven Elizabethan Lyrics, along with Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad at Southwell Minster and Dichterliebe in Derby Cathedral. William is the artistic director of The Nottingham Baroque Soloists, whose repertoire includes cantatas by Bach, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle. He studies with Rachel Nicholls.

William also works as a translator and subtitler from German, specialising in academia and the social sciences. His recent work includes reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council and reports on human rights issues in Germany. He also provides English-language translations for the German Federal Government Press Agency. As a subtitler he specialises in documentaries for Arte, including work on arts, culture and human rights.

Conductor

Rachel Parkes was born and raised in Northamptonshire. She received her early musical education through the Royal School of Church Music and Northamptonshire County Performing Arts Service, and went on to gain a first class Honours degree in Music, and later a Masters in Music an

d Performance, from Royal Holloway, University of London. During her studies Rachel studied singing with Margaret Cable and Jessica Cash, she now receives coaching from Lynne Wayman.

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Tickets

Click here to find out about the NCS 40th Anniversary Ticket Discount Scheme (NB This link will take you to the Nottingham Chamber Singers website)

Full £14, Concession £13, Child/Student £5

Tickets are available to buy online, or by calling the office on 01159589312. Tickets will also be available to buy on the door.