WALTHAM SINGERS SUMMER CONCERT

Great Waltham Church

18.06.11

This is Victoria's year, with choirs everywhere marking the 400^th anniversary of his death.

The Waltham Singers began with his Te Deum – a liturgical dialogue with a lone voice at the back of the church. Then the Missa Gaudeamus, a musical high point of the Spanish Renaissance, sung here with purity and precision. The Singers were on superb form, for this is complex writing; I particularly admired the triumphant optimism of the closing bars of the Credo, the crisply rhythmic approach to the climax of the Agnus Dei, and the richly glowing textures of the Gloria, with Andrew Fardell's sweeping gestures urging the singers to even greater eloquence.

The Mass was interspersed, not with organ solos or Plainchant, but with short works for four voices by other Iberian masters, performed by the gentlemen of the Orlando Consort, no less.

A wonderful tribute, and many groups would happily have left it there. But not the Waltham Singers; after the interval they brought us the amazing fusion sound of the Mantra project, in which the Orlando Consort are joined by tabla, sitar and the voice of Shahid Khan. One of the happiest outcomes was that Indian music seemed much less hermetically mysterious by the end of the evening, thanks to the witty and informative introductions by the performers.

All inspired by 16^th century musical missionaries who incorporated the traditions of Goa into their worship. I loved Encounter, with plainchant embroidered with an improvised alap, Tabla Talum, weaving the drums into melodic structure, and the summation of the sequence, Henna Night, blending polyphony, Arabic and an Indian wedding in a glorious celebration of music making. Though these cultural barriers were easier to break down than the traditional reserve of the British concert audience …

Summer Concert

Waltham Singers

20th June 2009

Jim Hutchon went to Great Waltham Parish Church

The Waltham Singers Summer concert programme consisted of two major works, Mozart’s Solemn Vespers and Handel’s Dixit Dominus. The 60-strong choir performed to a packed Great Waltham Church, accompanied by Camerata of London, an orchestra of younger musicians performing on modern instruments.

The choir’s trademark is a strong, rounded chorus with a wide tonal range, which Conductor Andrew Fardell brought out in both of these demanding works. Soloists were Stefanie Kemball-Reid (soprano), Aurore Lacabe (mezzo-sprano), Peter Wilman (tenor) and Samuel Queen(Baritone). Stefanie Kemball-Reid especially excelled with a clear striking tone in the key soprano solo in Mozart’s setting of Psalm 116, the Laudate Dominum.

Andrew Fardell also brought an extra resonance and relaxing voicing to Handel’s Dixit Dominus which, the programme notes tell us, were written when the composer was on a three-year visit to Rome in 1707, and shows his virtuosity writing in the Italian style. High spot of this work for me was a beautifully balanced voice/cello duet featuring Aurore Lacabe. The conductor kept great control over the exuberant choir, and allowed the work to grow to a glorious climax in the concluding Gloria Patri.

This was an evening of superb voices and great music of which the choir can be justly proud.