Review of our December 2024 Concert
At this annual Christmas concert of Shipston’s own choral society in its 49th year under the hugely experienced musical direction and baton of Richard Emms, we were treated to a lovely programme performed by musicians who obviously really cared about the music they were playing from orchestra, soloists and choir, accompanied beautifully on keyboard by Rachel Bird,
the choir’s rehearsal pianist. The communication between them was palpable which heralded a wonderful evening. And what was not to enjoy in major works of two of the greatest 17th to 18th century Baroque composers, Vivaldi and Handel?
Handel’s Messiah from which we heard fourteen excerpts overall across the first half of the concert, interspersed with two carols for the audience, finished with the rousing Hallelujah Chorus. What a brilliant start! Handel’s exceptional choral work first burst on the Dublin musical scene in 1742 when an enthusiastic Irish audience proclaimed it a fantastic success. Part Passion, part Anthem and definitely the dramatic precursor of the later flowering of Italian
Opera, Handel’s Messiah went on to become the seminal and inspirational choral work for all seasons for the emergent British choral society … after a dreary London audience failed at its first performance in the capital to recognise and respond to its drama, verve, emotion and vivacity.
I was truly impressed with the chamber orchestra from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire who clearly matched what the musical director wanted. This young, highly talented group played as one, responding with restraint and boldness to their fellow musicians with precision and enthusiasm. Both Handel and Vivaldi ensured, to show off their ability no doubt, that the choir had tricky and challenging parts to sing which the Stour Singers handled brilliantly with a
close response to the baton and clear love for the music. Again they managed to produce a collegiate sound with the musicians around them.
On this occasion we had a fantastic trio of soloists of national distinction; a last-minute replacement soprano, Louise Wayman produced a dramatic and thrilling solo and joint performance alongside the deeply velvet but strong Mezzo-soprano of Cathy Bell and tender but passionate tenor of Matthew Pochin. All singers obviously very familiar with Baroque music. The enunciation of the words was clear and they gave to their performances singly and together a lively, meaningful and moving interpretation to which the audience responded.
In the second half we were offered Vivaldi’s Beatus Vir (Blessed is the man) and his Magnificat, works written for a Venice orphanage for boys and girls where Vivaldi was employed over many years to teach music. A brilliant violinist, Vivaldi ensured this fairly restrained music of psalm and canticle received the lightness and lift of strings. Added to the repertoire of recognised Vivaldi’s works less than 20 years ago, these works composed originally in 1710 for girls’ voices were later revised by Vivaldi around 1720 to include tenor and high bass. The Magnificat, or Song of Mary for Advent and Evensong, included five arias for girls’ voices Vivaldi had trained and with oboes included in the string orchestra. A moving finale to an inspiring concert.
Just a reminder! In May 2025 the Stour Singers will be celebrating 50 years singing annually In May and December for Shipston and locality and God willing will continue for many years to come. Following next May’s concert the Stour Singers’ founder Richard Emms will be handing over the baton to Alex Silverman, after giving our wide rural area over half a century of brilliant
and most varied-across-time programmes of choral music for all tastes.
Ina M. Evans
Review of our May 2019 concert
TIME TO SMILE
The audience enjoyed a full-blown baroque treat from the Stour Singers at their concert on 11th May with Handel’s The Trumpet Shall Sound (Messiah) and Foundling Hospital Anthem, Monteverdi’s popular Beatus Vir from his late liturgical works, and a Vivaldi favourite, the Dixit Dominus. It was an inspired programme choice of three baroque composers at their best.
Under the lively baton of Music Director, Richard Emms, and with the enthusiastic support of the youthful Queen’s Park Sinfonia who contributed a spring-like freshness to the scores, this concert with fully committed choir and soloists was a joy. The choir’s accomplished accompanist Rachel Bird was busy on keyboard throughout the programme.
These works demand a lot of concentration and accurate timing from any choir, being considerably energetic pieces that also need a subtlety of expression and the Stour Singers rose to the occasion to give the audience a very strong performance.
The vivid opening piece The Trumpet Shall Sound was brightly exemplified by one of the Sinfonia’s excellent trumpeters and bass baritone Julian Debreuil. The choral works were enriched with the professional interpretation of all the soloists. Both Susanna Fairbairn, soprano, and Cathy Bell, mezzo soprano, sang with a lyrical and moving expressiveness and with voices beautifully tuned in those duo passages echoing each other or in the exciting runs in the Dixit Dominus. The same must be said for Tom Raskin’s bright tenor sound and the vocal colour of Julian Debreuil’s bass baritone, who also shared some exciting duo passages. As a quartet the soloists performed well.
The whole programme resounded with an intuitive sense of balance and shared feeling between choir, orchestra and soloists to produce one of the best concerts of so many. Though musical content was sacred, this exhilarating performance with its considerable bounce simply made you smile.
Don’t miss this choir’s only other major public performance of the year at Christmas.
Tom Bone
Stratford Herald, 16 May 2019
Feedback on our December 2018 concert
Thank you, Richard and all involved with the Stour Singers, for putting on such a fabulous concert last Saturday. What a wonderful performance. It makes us all realise how fortunate we are to have such talent both locally and accessible to the Town. We are truly privileged.
Ian Cooper, Mayor of Shipston-on Stour
Review of our May 2018 concert
MUSIC … THE FOOD OF LOVE INDEED!
The Shipston Stour Singers under their creative musical director, Richard Emms, gave us a night out to remember at St. Edmund’s Church, Shipston on Stour on the 12th May. They were beautifully accompanied by the talented Queen’s Park Sinfonia chamber orchestra of young graduate musicians who, with professional skill, put their heart and soul into the performance. The choir’s own musically sensitive Rachel Bird was on keyboard.
Richard had chosen a challenging and exciting programme, in terms of contrast for both choir and audience, with the Rutter Magnificat followed by the Fauré Requiem: a vividly joyous and celebratory work by Rutter and the all-time favourite Fauré with its core serenity and sublime tenderness. Both these works required a great deal from the interwoven voices of the choir in terms of dynamic control and timing. In my view and according to audience response they succeeded magnificently with a full bodied performance of the Magnificat, which one person described to me as the popping of champagne corks, bubbling with vivacity. To follow this with the quietly controlled and sustained vocal demands of the Requiem was difficult but this generally mature choir managed to achieve that intrinsic sweetness and clarity of young voices the work really needs.
But neither work could have succeeded so well without the lovely professional voices of the soloists, Soprano, Ruth Holton and last minute replacement baritone, Andrew Mayor. Ruth, in a varied career has developed a huge repertoire ranging from music of the Middle Ages to the Contemporary. Her voice has a ringing, bell-like clarity, a really pure sound with which she brought a gentle flow to Rutter’s Et misericordia and in the Requiem’s Pie Jesu a spiritual purity which brought a lump to the throat. And from my point of view I found the Italianesque operatic approach of Andrew Mayor to the Fauré distinctly appropriate and very moving. He also brought a strength and richness to the Requiem’s Libera Me, in its supplication to the Lord to be delivered from everlasting death.
The two profoundly religious works are to my mind about love and one would assume it was an over-riding love of God in the world and for life which inspired both Rutter and Fauré and even perhaps, under the mystical power of music for one evening, the capacity audience at St. Edmund’s.
Maggie Goren
Review of Handel’s Saul, May 2017
A Resounding Musical Success!
On May 13th in St. Edmund’s Church, Shipston-on-Stour, under the thorough baton of dedicated musical director Richard Emms, his Shipston choir, the Stour Singers, and the well-established, youthful chamber orchestra, Midlands-based Queen’s Park Sinfonia, performed Handel’s Oratorio Saul to the delight of all who came. Music comes in all shapes and sizes from Pop and Rock to high Baroque, something to suit all tastes. It can thrill, chill, move and elate us. This programme was elating.
And the choir and audience were blessed with five extraordinary and highly professional vocal soloists! Handel wanted to tell a famous dramatic story and it could surely not have been better told than by these five singers. Australian soprano, Anita Watson, winner of so many international competitions, sang Saul’s daughter and lover of David, Michal, in her rich and beautiful voice, which rang out with warmth and distinction. Tim Morgan, a young countertenor, was technically excellent and sang David with an astonishing range and richness, simply a lovely voice. Ben Thapa, tenor, sang Jonathan and his dramatically expressive singing was equally exemplified in the other roles he took. Baritone, Alistair Donaghue, fulfilled the voice of prophesy and other parts with clarity and with a warm and liquid tone that charmed the ear. The commanding and explicit voice of bass baritone, Darren Jeffery, sang the tormented King Saul and filled it with strength and emotional depth and with great clarity. What a tremendous and hugely experienced quintet of soloists to put over so much drama with such conviction!
And the choir? It was outstanding on this occasion, both in its balanced vocal strength and interpretation. Quick and clear on their entries, the choristers put everything they had at their vocal disposal into this moving feast, from feisty to moments of pure sorrow as in ‘Mourn Israel…‘. They sounded very confident and appeared to be enjoying singing.
Providing the continuous musical accompaniment to all the vocal performers in Handel’s emotionally wide-ranging score was the Queen’s Park Sinfonia with its lively and dynamically expressive playing, with special praise for the woodwind… and to Rachel Bird, the choir’s accompanist, on keyboard.
This was an evening-out to remember: amazing composer, live musicians, live audience, live music on our rural doorstep. We live in troubled times, but in such music, telling a tale going back more than three thousand years, we are reminded across centuries of our humanity and that while there’s life, there’s love and hope. And music surely plays a deep and central role in our lives!
Ina M. Evans