LATEST NEWS
CANCELLED….COME & SING 22 January
Due to the current Omicron situation sadly this event has been cancelled
Coming soon …..
A beautiful concert to remember all those we loved including:
Vaughan William’s Five Mystic Songs
&
Paul Spicer’s The Invisible Trumps commissioned during the 2020 covid outbreak
Ed Ballard
"seductive and magnetic at all times”
Bachtrack.
Ed will be performing Vaughan Williams ‘Five Mystic Songs'
Click here for more details & tickets
Our sincere thanks to The Roughley Trust for their generous support for this performance
The new choral work by our Director of music, Paul Spicer, pertinent to this moment in history is now in print.
The Choir will start rehearsing this work in January.
Commissioned by the Choir, generously funded by our past President, the late Pauline Round in her will.
It stands as a testament to this very moment in time of pandemic crisis and to Pauline’s close relationship with us.
Each movement uses a different poem for the libretto (including anonymous texts from the 12th century, the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, Walter de la Mare, and Pauline Round).
The title, Sound the Invisible Trumps is from the poem by Walter de la Mare.
Paul says of the work:... it is essentially a ‘darkness to light’ theme with the pandemic as the backdrop.
A very big and satisfying job resulting in 7 movements and 23 minutes of music.
I am particularly happy with the final movement which really dances its way through and should be quite exciting.
These quick, upbeat movements are always the hardest to do and it was very important that this one should be a complete release from all that has gone before.
Pauline is the overall dedicatee of course, and I am very pleased to have been able to use two of her poems.
These are what I call the ‘sorbet’ courses between bigger, fully-fledged pieces. They are both unaccompanied.
Mike Lloyd is the sub-dedicatee of the second movement, husband to Merryn, soprano, and close friend of the Choir, who tragically did not survive the covid virus.
Sound the Invisible Trumps will be premiered 2 April 2022 in St Philip’s Cathedral, Birmingham, alongside a beautiful programme of music for those we have loved. Click here
More about Paul Spicer
Read more about Paul’s work with The Royal Conservatoire Chamber Choir…..
Paul Spicer conducting Birmingham Bach Choir 4 Dec 2021
Exciting Announcement
Our concert next November will be Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Lichfield Cathedral
More details soon
A Big Thank You to all who braved foul weather & traffic 4 December for O Clap Your Hands concert
Birmingham Bach Choir conducted by Paul Spicer, St Philip’s Cathedral 4 Dec 2021
The programme was kicked off with Vaughan Williams "O Clap Your Hands" and followed by Walton, Leighton, Britten, Dvorak plus the world premiere of David Bednall’s "The Dear Bargain" commissioned by the choir for our centenary celebrations 2 years ago
Despite being down to only 47 singers on the day Paul Spicer wrote:
”a really terrific concert. David Bednall was thrilled with your performance of his beautiful work. A really brilliant restart after 2 years”
Congratulations to our lovely soloists and organist from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire: Isabella Abbot Parker, Hope Pugh, Timothy Burton, Alex Pratley & Callum Alger
..........
"what singing! This is not easy repertoire but a high standard was set from the outset with a truly atmospheric and expressive opening"
(Prof David Saint)
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Prof David Saint
It was unfortunate for me that appalling weather and a traffic gridlock made me late for this concert, and so I missed the first three items. As I came in, Callum Alger was just beginning what proved to be his scintillating performance of Whitlock’s Fanfare, played with authority and sensitivity in the middle section.
The first singing I heard was therefore Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb. And what singing! This is not easy repertoire but a high standard was set from the outset with a truly atmospheric and expressive opening in which every word could be heard. The celebratory second section requires agility and exuberance which the choir provided in abundance; even the infamously tricky runs were well-executed, especially those on the word ‘dance’
I particularly enjoyed the dismissive venom which the choir brought to the words “Silly fellow” and the final section was sublime. Fine performances were given by the four soloists and Callum Alger’s accompaniment was impeccable.
Commissioning a work always has an element of risk – buying without seeing! Happily, David Bednall’s The Dear Bargain suited the choir to the core and obviously spoke deeply to the conductor. Bednall’s idiom is immediately attractive and the care with which he sets words was matched by the choir’s care in performance. Unaccompanied passages were sung with passion and faultless tuning, and the performance was overall beautifully shaped.
To end such a demanding concert with Dvorak’s Mass in D was the final challenge and there were a few moments where the choir sounded slightly tired, such as the opening of the Sanctus and the ‘qui tollis’ section of the Gloria. However, these are minor quibbles in the face of a performance of such verve and style. The grand sweep of the Kyrie (my favourite movement, as it happens)….the fanfare-like opening of the Gloria….the drama of ‘Crucifixus’….and the power of the lower voices in, for example, the antiphonal sections of the Credo….all brought the evening to a wonderful conclusion.
After a very difficult eighteen months, it was super to hear the Bach Choir – and at only 60% strength – in such great form, further increasing my regret at missing the beginning of the programme. Paul Spicer devised a really challenging programme for this ‘re-entry concert’ and he can only have been very proud of the choir’s response. Congratulations all round and a special mention of Callum Alger’s superb playing throughout.
David Saint is an organist and choral director. He is Organist and Director of Music at St Chad’s Cathedral and until 2015 he was Principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
"what a celebration! The work of most interest was the premiere performance of David Bednall’s The Dear Bargain, commissioned by the choir for its centenary. It played to the strengths of the choir, who sang confidently and captured all the moods of the piece, especially the radiant ending“
(Peter Morris)
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Review by Peter Morris
O clap your hands indeed that Birmingham Bach Choir is back after such a long silence; they have been much missed. Pouring rain and ‘noises off’ from the Christmas revellers outside Birmingham Cathedral did not dampen the audience’s enjoyment.
It was a depleted choir (60% of its normal size) but as Paul Spicer commented, it was ‘a step back to normality’. And what a celebration! The work of most interest was the premiere performance of David Bednall’s The Dear Bargain, commissioned by the choir for its centenary. It played to the strengths of the choir, who sang confidently and captured all the moods of the piece, especially the radiant ending. The words were carefully illustrated by the music and also by the singers. David Bednall said ‘I was keen that the chorus should enjoy the work’. So did the audience.
The other particularly successful performance was that of Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb. It was rhythmically crisp and limpidly fluent by turns. The choir was idiomatically incisive and particularly expressive of the agonies suffered by the visionary poet Christopher Smart. Here and elsewhere the excellence of alto soloist Hope Pugh and the organist Callum Alger contributed hugely to the success.
Welcome back!
Peter Morris is a conductor and organist with a long career in teaching music, conducting orchestras and choirs, organ playing (and getting organs rebuilt) and examining.
Photos by Frank Wood
2 New Singers have joined us
We congratulate Catherine & Isaac for passing their auditions last autumn and performing with us on 6 December.
To find out more about them click here
If you would like to join the choir click here for details
Click for more information
Would you like to join us ?
Next auditions: 2nd February .
For more info please click here
Memories of our Centenary Concert in Lichfield Cathedral
photo: Frank Wood
Our last concert before the pandemic hit was such a wonderful celebration for our 100 years.
We remember our superb orchestra (The Musical and Amicable Society), soloists (Anita Watson, Samantha Price, Mark Wilde and Felix Kemp) and our own Martyn Rawles (on the chamber organ) performing with us to an absolutely packed cathedral.
Aaah happier times!
Pictures below of the hardworking final rehearsal and actual concert
(with gratitude to Frank Wood & Dave Freak for their photos)
So many thanks to all who helped keep us together singing during the long lockdown for singers
A Covid secure rehearsal with Paul Spicer
We spent most of our time together on zoom sessions.
Many thanks to Paul & Martyn for their perserverance with the technology - not easy for Paul to conduct us without hearing us, nor for us to sing each in isolation in our own homes.
Paul conducting us on zoom with regular accompanist Martyn
And finally many thanks to those who did all the organising behind the scenes
Especially to our Choir Secretary who has & still does play a Herculean role during the past 12+ months keeping us all together, steering us, and ploughing through the mire of Covid rules & regulations.
Thank You flowers delivery!
Our sincere thanks go to:
The Grimmitt Trust, The Saintbury Trust, The S&D Lloyd Trust, The John Feeney Charitable Trust, and the W.E. Dunn Trust who have all supported us recently.
We also acknowledge with thanks the work of professional photographers Adrian Burrows, Frank Wood and Rob Gillespie, whose photographs appear on this website.
Saturday 2 April:
For Those We Loved
St Philip’s Cathedral
Sat 25 June:
Lux Aeterna - A Summer Concert
St Paul’s, Birmingham
Sat 2 July:
Lux Aeterna - A Summer Concert
Malvern Priory, Malvern
Sat 19 November:
J S Bach - Christmas Oratorio
Lichfield Cathedral
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