You wait ages for a good choir to come along......

[Guest]

Our little town is certainly doing its bit to encourage people to come and watch classy singing, as we have no fewer than 3 choral concerts in 9 days, to be given respectively by:
Collegium Regale (St Johns Church, Friday 1st April)
The Dorian Singers (St Peter and St Paul Church, Saturday 2nd April)
The Ipswich Bach Choir (St Andrews Church, Saturday 9th April)
...and just for good measure, there's a concert of chamber works by Brahms at St Peter and St Paul Church on Sunday 3rd April!

[rauschwerk]

Collegium Regale came to a church near here recently. The counter-tenor behaved through most of the programme as though he were a soloist, so it was not the treat that might have been expected.

I have not heard the Dorians for donkey's years, and will keep schtum in the matter of the Ipswich Bach Choir beyond saying that they are by no means what they used to be. However, they have chosen an excellent soprano soloist.

[Phoenix]

I also attended a near-Ipswich concert by the Collegium Regale recently. The counter tenor might have sung more quietly possibly but he had, to my ears, such a beautiful ringing voice that I would been less than delighted had he muffled his instrument. My own feeling was that the other parts needed to be both richer and also, when appropriate, more incisive. He certainly did not seem to be working too hard. What I found disappointing about this concert, and indeed many similar ones, was the apparent need to appeal to a wide range of tastes. When I want folksongs, barbershop, pop or spiritual or, indeed, any combination of the same I will attend a suitable event, in a suitable mood. I went along hoping to wallow in Lassus and Byrd, etc, and had such for only 25% of the concert. Had they finished with this kind of music, rare enough to hear sung well at the best of times, at least I could have gone away happy. Is there a danger that this type of concert, rather than appealing to more people, will actually satisfy less? I attended a "Sixteen" concert recently and the packed audience filling the nave of the cathedral seemed very happy with what was on offer. This was entirely Victoria, in fact entirely his Marian music. No jarring with Beachboy arrangements as a special treat at the end.

[Norfolk Born]

I think their Felixstowe programme is going to be ...let's say wide-ranging. The Dorians have programmed Mozart, Monteverdi and Vaughan Williams. The Ipswich Bach Choir are doing the Mozart Reqiuem, Purcell's Te Deum and some fairly popular Handel.

[ardcarp]

My word, Coll Reg is busy. Coming to a church near us too. Do they need to pay off their student loans???

[bach736]

In this case 'you wait ages for half a good choir to come along' as Collegium Regale (aka The Fourteen) divide in two for their 10 day tour - one group in the south, t'other up north.

[Norfolk Born]

Thank you for your interesting comments. As we say, stuck out here on the edge of the North Sea, half a good choir is better than a poke in the eye with a dirty stick, bonny lass. (I started this thread just to remind people that there's more to Felixstowe than containers, residential/nursing homes, T.E. Lawrence, Mrs. Simpson and the site of the last resisted landing on English soil by a foreign power.)

[bach736]

... and a rather good three manual organ on the north side of St John's chancel, I seem to remember.

[rauschwerk]

What I found disappointing about this concert, and indeed many similar ones, was the apparent need to appeal to a wide range of tastes.

Is there a danger that this type of concert, rather than appealing to more people, will actually satisfy less?

I don't believe so myself. A few top-notch choirs can programme 100% 'serious' stuff, and provided the programme is published in advance then the audience will know exactly what to expect. If the King's choral scholars came to Felixstowe or Ipswich with a programme of entirely Renaissance polyphony, they would get an audience of three men and a dog, and on their next visit the men might stay away (I speak from the experience of performing a wide range of music in this area). They are raising money for charity, after all, and they need bums on seats (to put it vulgarly).

[Norfolk Born]

He's right, you know!

[ardcarp]

with a programme of entirely Renaissance polyphony

At a Benedictine abbey in Devon (OK, I know it's not Felixstowe) a local choir performs regularly programmes of what I call mood music...a mixture of Renaissance polyphony and stuff of the Tavener, Part, Whitaker ilk. The place is packed every time, BUT the audience has a surprising cross-section of people. It's not just the local literati, nor RCs pining for a lost era, but quite a fair proportion of 'ordinary folk' who know little about music but who like to sit for an hour and let the sound wash over them. The programmes are short, and I guess the general ambience of the place has something to do with it. For my taste, the programmes are too samey, and I long for the occasional quaver to interpolate itself among the semi-breves, but this choir has hit on a formula which puts bums on seats. Try it in Felixstowe?

[Norfolk Born]

I'll have a word with some of my Felixstovian musical friends (I'm merely an enthusiastic helper). The average age of those attending concerts in this area is worryingly high, even though admission for children is free, and the social mix doesn't vary much from concert to concert even though some programmes are determinedly more populist (for want of a better word).