Fridays and the Future
17 May 2021
Later today we will hold our first live rehearsal for over 400
days! We are hugely grateful to The Old Savoy for hosting us, and
remain extremely miffed that the Department for Digital, Culture,
Media and Sport still hasn’t published the proper guidance we need.
Nevertheless, we are following the advice of the Association of
British Choral Directors, Making Music, and our own stringent risk
assessments, to get back to a little live singing after this long
period away. Our return will be gentle, with short session and
reduced numbers, but we hope that over time we will slowly return
back to what we had become so accustomed to over many years -
inspiring weekly sessions with choral greats.
Iain Farrington on Elgar, Mahler, and
more
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Prof. Ian Bradley on Sir Arthur Sullivan
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So far this term we have had five Home Choir Zoom rehearsals on
our programme - Summer in the Alps - and we have welcomed
five of this term’s eight guests at our Fridays at Four expert
sessions. This began on 30 April with the astonishing arranger,
composer, pianist, and organist, Iain Farrington, on his life with
Elgar, Mahler, and more (including Gershwin and playing at the
Olympics). We then welcomed another Ian, The Revd. Prof. Ian
Bradley, Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the
University of St Andrews, who talked to our MD about the sacred
music of Sir Arthur Sullivan, following the publication by OUP of
his new book on Sullivan.
88 attendees learning about Smyth
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The Ethel Smyth Panel
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Last Friday we welcomed Dr Leah Broad from Christ Church College,
University of Oxford, Dr Amy Zigler from Salem College, North
Carolina, USA, and Hannah Millington, a doctoral student at City
University, Dublin, to discuss the music of Dame Ethel Smyth, whose
choral prologue to Der Wald (opera) we are singing this term.
Further sessions are planned for the remainder of the term with
Professor Michael Downes (Elgar and the Sacred), our own MD (Das
Land ohne Musik?), Dr Adèle Commins (the music of Sir Charles
Villiers Stanford), and Dr Catherine Carr (the life and music of
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor).
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