St Albans Chamber Choir

Season 2018-19

John Gibbons conductor

Several significant anniversaries are celebrated during our 2018-19 concert season.

In October, we present a concert of contemporary works for choir and saxophone, including pieces by our President, Will Todd. This concert is followed by a feast of polychoral Renaissance Christmas music in December

The sixtieth anniversary of the formation of the choir is marked in February with a special commission from renowned local composer Alexander L’Estrange and a seldom-performed unaccompanied work by Rachmaninoff.

The concert in April, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of our association with the Wormser Kantorei, features works by composers from both the UK and Germany.

In June, music on the theme of war and peace commemorates the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919.

We look forward to welcoming you at our concerts, which are generally followed by a social get-together, with drinks and party nibbles provided by the choir members

Saturday 20 October 2018 – St Saviour’s Church

Sax and the City

Works for choir and saxophone including Richard Sisson – Pied Beauty, Ian Stephens – Timepieces and Will Todd – Songs of Love

Saturday 8 December 2018 – St Peter’s Church

A Renaissance Christmas

Polychoral pieces from 16th and 17th century Europe featuring Cipriano de Rore’s seven-part Missa Praeter rerum serium with works by Josquin des Prez, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Giovanni Gabrieli, Hieronymus Praetorius and Samuel Scheidt

Saturday 16 February 2019 – St Saviour’s Church

Mystic Voices

The choir’s Sixtieth Anniversary Commission from Alexander L’Estrange setting texts from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran paired with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 1910 setting of the modern Byzantine Eucharist service: Liturgy of St John Chrysostom

Saturday 27 April 2019 – St Albans Cathedral

Golden Jubilee Celebrations with Wormser Kantorei

Mozart – Krönungsmesse (Coronation Mass)

Vaughan Williams – Dona nobis pacem

Handel – Zadok the Priest

Saturday 29 June 2019 – St Saviour’s Church

Peace of Versailles

Francis Poulenc’s masterpiece for double choir Figure humaine composed in 1943 during the occupation of France with Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Messa di requiem (1922) and Darius Milhaud’s Cantate de la paix (1937)

All concerts start at 7.30pm