I write this the day after returning home from a 9-day singing and conducting summer school with Sing for Pleasure. Based at Jesus College, Cambridge, it was utterly exhausting yet completely exhilarating. Work began at 8.45am last Sunday morning as we started learning Sarah Quartel’s “A Winter Day”, led by the SfP tutors. Sublime … More Why Sing?
Whether you love or loathe the work of Karl Jenkins, he is one of the most performed living composers in the world. His most popular piece (alongside his full choral work, “The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace”) is this one … More Adiemus – Jenkins (1944-present)
Like many of the pieces I write about in this blog, I was introduced to this song at a rehearsal of the Manchester Chorale. We were learning it for our summer concert programme in 2018. Imagine our pleasure when one of the Chorale members chose it as the bridal entry music for her wedding, and asked us to sing it for her … More I Will Come to You – M Fairbairn (b. 1986)
This is a joyous song in the American gospel tradition. It encourages us to celebrate and give thanks for all the small blessings in life – a sunny day, the bus coming on time, righting a mistake … More Sing Amen (Stuart Overington 2018)
Every Saturday in Lent we bring you a suitable anthem. Tomorrow we think about the Passion of Christ. Carol and Tom offer this anthem by James H Rogers … More Great Peace Have They
Did you know that carols, like puppies, are not just for Christmas? According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a carol is a song characteristically of religious joy, associated with a given season, with uniform stanzas or verses that may alternate with a refrain … More The Crown of Roses – words Pleshcheev (1825-93) tr. Drearmer, music Tchaikovsky (1840-93)
music: Maurice Greene (1696-1755), words Psalm 65, vv9,12 This article was written for the October issue of our parish magazine. About a year ago, in the autumn of 2020 we had endured a full national lockdown, a summer of somewhat eased restrictions, and were entering a time of less-than-clear tiered restrictions. If memory serves, that … More Thou Visitest the Earth
2018 has been a year of remembrance with concerts to commemorate the centenary of the ending of the Great War reaching their climax in November … More We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace – trad spiritual, arr. Hogan (1957-2003)
Regular readers will know how important music is to me, and much has been said about the importance of music in worship over recent weeks – in a weekly course, in our church services and in magazine articles. It has been all the more poignant for the long absence of music from our worship, and its reintroduction at the end of July … More When is a ‘Performance’ not a ‘Performance’?
Have you noticed that during June and into July Maggie’s Music Makers treated you to several instances of communion setting contrafactum? All were taken from “Hymns Old and New” (HON) – our trusty orange hymn book … More Communion Settings
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 