|
Latest
News
David
Paynes In BBC Young Chorister Final
Congratulations
to David Paynes, who has won through to the final of this year's
BBC Radio 2 Young Choristers Of The Year Final. David is one
of only four boys from across the country, who will compete for
the coveted title at St. Paul's Cathedral, London on Friday 31st
October. The competition will be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on
Sunday 2nd November. David sings in his local parish church
choir at Pannal, just outside Harrogate, where his father is
choirmaster, and becomes the fifth singer from Harrogate this
decade to reach the Young Choristers final.
New
CD Recordings
We
will be recording our follow-up CD on Monday 27th October, for
release later in the year or early next year. Talking about CDs,
Emma Whiteley's debut CD "Believe" is now out and
available to buy. All proceeds from the sale of this CD will
be donated to charity. For details, please see Emma's
website, www.emmawhiteley.co.uk
or email david@verseandchorus.co.uk
2008-2009
Programme Of Events
For our autumn concert in
October this year we return to Pannal to join with Kevin Paynes
and the St Robert's Church choir. This concert will
take place on Sunday 12th October at 7.00p.m.
Our Christmas season will
begin with a charity concert at St. Wilfrid's Church on Friday 5th
December, and our own ever-popular Christmas concert will take
place on Friday 19th December.
Looking ahead to next year,
we will be singing at a wedding at Kirby Overblow in April, and
there will be a Summer concert in early July.
Further events will be added
as and when available. Verse And Chorus is always happy to
accept bookings for fund-raising concerts and events. Please
email engagements@verseandchorus.co.uk
for further details.
Mendelssohn's
Elijah
Verse
And Chorus was delighted to be able to join with the Harrogate
Choral Society for a performance of Mendelssohn's
Elijah in the newly refurbished Royal Hall on Saturday
3rd May 2008 (7.30p.m.). The concert was
conducted by Andrew Padmore. As well as celebrating the
much-heralded reopening of the Royal Hall, the concert also marked
the 60th anniversary of the first Harrogate Choral Society concert
after its reformation - a performance of Elijah on 28th April,
1948. According to one review of the concert "the
young group Verse And Chorus sang the famous trio "Lift Thine
Eyes" commendably from memory with well-balanced harmonies
and excellent diction. Despite their numbers they later
blended perfectly with the adult choir."
Emma
Whiteley Performs For Prince Charles
Emma Whiteley was
honoured to be chosen to sing at the reopening of Harrogate's
Royal Hall by HRH The Prince Of Wales on Tuesday 22nd
January. She sang Philip Stopford's "An Irish
Blessing" and was then joined by William Dutton to perform
Cesar Franck's Panis Angelicus, in the arrangement which they had
previously sung on BBC Songs Of Praise. Emma and William
also appeared on the recent Songs Of Praise broadcast from St.
Wilfrid's Church, Harrogate, when they sang a special arrangement
of Bob Chilcott's "The Lord's My Shepherd."
Christmas
Concert Première Performance
It
was a real pleasure performing to a full church at Dacre Banks for
our annual concert of Christmas Music. The programme
featured the first performance of a demanding new work "A
Festive Alleluia", written specially for the choir by
Sarah Cleveland, one of our singers, who is studying GCSE music at
Harrogate Ladies College. Other highlights included solos
from Sophie Whiteley, Laura Whiteley, Alice
Bainbridge, Ravi Patel, Bethany McKenzie-Shore, David Paynes and
Emma Whiteley, as well as favourite carols and arrangements by
Philip Stopford, Andrew Carter, John Rutter and Bob
Chilcott. The concert raised much needed and appreciated
funds for Holy Trinity Church.
Bill
Goss on National Television and Radio with The Choirboys
We are all very proud that one of our singers, Bill Goss, who starred
in Benjamin Britten's The Turn Of The Screw in Belgium earlier
this year, has made a number of television and radio appearances as one of
The Choirboys,
whose Christmas Album was released on 3rd December.
For further details of Bill's schedule, please see www.thechoirboys.org.uk
and www.thechoirboys.co.uk.
BBC
Broadcasts
A select group of singers
from Verse And Chorus led the
singing live on the BBC Radio 4 Daily Service from Emmanuel
Church, Didsbury on Monday 28th May. Our repertoire
comprised Philip Stopford's "Come Down, O Love Divine"
and two hymns - "When God The Spirit Came" (to a tune by
Edward Darling) and "O Thou Who Camest From Above" -
which featured solo verses from Emma Whiteley and Alice
Bainbridge.
We returned to Didsbury on
Thursday 27th December for a second broadcast, which featured one
of Bob Chilcott's newest pieces "The Marvellous Birth".
Verse
And Chorus at Didsbury, May 2007
If you missed Songs
Of Praise on BBC1 (4th
November), when Emma Whiteley was featured singing Panis
Angelicus with William Dutton from St. John's Church, Knotty Ash, and Happiness along
with Ken Dodd, have a look at www.Youtube.co.uk,
where videos of both performances are available to watch.
You can also view Emma's broadcast from St. Wilfrid's Church,
Harrogate in February at the same time!
On Thursday 21st June 2007, the BBC
Sunday Half-hour programme came to St. Robert's Church, Pannal,
where Emma Whiteley, BBC Young Chorister Of The Year, sings every Sunday, to record
Emma in two solo pieces along with hymns and anthems from the
combined choirs of St. Robert's Church and Verse And Chorus and an
invited congregation. The music was directed by Kevin Paynes
and accompanied on the organ by David Darling.
Emma has made the best of the fantastic opportunities
open to her - two live broadcasts on Aled Jones' Radio 2 Sunday
morning programme; singing Schubert's Ave Maria with Jose Carreras in the Royal Albert Hall;
guest soloist at the Institute of Cancer Research's Gala
Christmas Concert at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea; recordings for Radio 2's Sunday Half-Hour
from Exeter Cathedral and the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool (as well
as from Pannal); five live Radio 4 Daily Service broadcasts, a Radio 4 Sunday Service broadcast from
Wesley's chapel in London; two Songs Of Praise recordings and solo rôles in Handel's Messiah and
Vivaldi's Gloria locally.
 
Emma
Whiteley after winning the BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister Of The Year
Award, October 2006, and at the Institute of Cancer Research
Christmas Concert, December 2006
CD
"All Aboard"
New
Songs Of Celebration!
We presented our CD launch
concert last year to a full church at St. Mark's,
Harrogate, where we also performed the world première of Philip
Stopford's latest composition New Songs Of Celebration.
Our
CD All Aboard! available for sale. It
includes twenty-two tracks of choral and vocal favourites,
including Son Of Mary, the song which won Emma Whiteley the
BBC Young Chorister Of The Year title, along with solo songs from
Dennis Maher, Alice Bainbridge, Bill Goss (The Choirboys 2007) and Claudia Goss, and represents excellent
value for money. Email david@verseandchorus.co.uk
to obtain your copy.
"ALL
ABOARD!".........Review
With successive revisions of the school
curriculum resulting in the increasing marginalisation of the
Arts, it is reassuring to hear the results of an initiative which
is attempting, with conspicuous success, to remedy this
situation. Founded in September 2002 to meet the needs of
young singers of secondary school age keen to develop their choral
skills, the membership of Verse and Chorus is drawn from
various schools in Harrogate and the surrounding area. Under the
direction of David Darling, the choir has made rapid progress,
winning a number of important awards at major competitive
festivals and giving concerts in various parts of the country.
They have already made an appearance in Germany.
"All Aboard!", the
choir's first CD, gives some idea of the range of its repertoire
and the high standards which it is capable of achieving. The
thirty-nine singers display admirable competence in both sacred
and secular music and the listener is immediately impressed by
their obvious enthusiasm and commitment. They convey a real sense
of the joy which they experience in their collective music-making
with generally clear enunciation and very good blend and quality
of tone. Despite the preponderance of sopranos (20) and
altos (12), the four young tenors and basses are almost always
equal to the task of providing an adequate balance in the
mixed-voice items! On the whole, pitch is well maintained
and the contrasting moods are realised effectively.
Particular mention must be made of the outstanding contributions
made by the soloists who are all first-rate. Among these are Emma
Whiteley, who won the prestigious BBC 2 Young Chorister Of The
Year Award in 2006 [and Bill Goss, one of the 2007 The Choirboys].
First Verse and Chorus, a choir
for children of primary school age was founded in September 2006
to give preliminary training to junior singers in preparation for
entry into the senior choir in due course. The performances of
First Verse and Chorus on this CD would suggest that this
flourishing choral tradition has a bright future.
Congratulations to David Darling, his
colleague Sarah Paynes and the singers on a splendid recording
debut. We shall eagerly look forward to further releases.
Harry Grindle
1 November, 2007
Tracks
included on the CD
1.
Blue Moon 2. Be
Thou My Vision 3. Ave Maria
4. Maria
5. Do You Hear What I Hear?
6. All Things Bright And Beautiful
7. I Am A Small Part Of The World
8. I Could Have Danced All Night 9. Down
By The Riverside
10. Can You Hear Me?
11. Gaudete 12. The Spanish Main
13. God Is In Bethlehem
14. A Child Is Born In Bethlehem
15. Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man
16. A Bunch Of Thyme
17. Like A Rainbow
18. I Will Sing With The Spirit
19. Son Of Mary 20. Streets
Of London 21. The
Rose 22. Chattanooga
Choo Choo
To
order a copy, please fill in the form at the bottom of the page.
Verse
And Chorus At National Festival
Both Verse And Chorus and
First Verse And Chorus performed at the National Festival
of Music For Youth at the Birmingham Conservatoire in July.
.jpg)
At
the Music For Youth National Choral Festival, Birmingham, July 2007
Harrogate
Festival Champion Choir - again!
In March 2007, Verse And
Chorus won the prize for the best choir of the Harrogate
Competitive Festival for the second year in succession, at the end
of an excellent day's competition, which also saw the choir
achieve two other first prizes and two runner-up places against
good opposition. The day started with First Verse And Chorus
retaining the Primary Choirs trophy which the choir had won last
year.
First Verse And
Chorus at Alzheimer's Society Christmas Party
Verse
And Chorus CD Order Form
Please
reserve
copies of the CD.
(Details
of how to pay will be sent to you)
Name:
Address:
Telephone:
Email:
|
