Hexham Abbey

Music in the Abbey 

Programme for 2008... [pdf brochure]

Cavalli Vespers - an original!

Leeds Guild of Singers re-create St Mark’s, Venice in Hexham Abbey
Saturday 21 June 2008 at 7.30 pm

Tickets £8, under 18s £2
Tickets are available at the door.
Tickets are also available in advance from Hexham Abbey Gift Shop
[Click for flier]

The Leeds Guild of Singers have always been an enterprising choir, with a repertoire that spans the centuries from Hildegard of Bingen to new commissions and first performances. Based in the music department at Leeds University the group of between 25 and 30 singers the choir is most at home in the music of the Renaissance as in the intricacies of a contemporary score. They have performed in notable venues all over Yorkshire, including Fountains Abbey and Ripley Castle, and beyond in venues such as the mediaeval splendour of Cartmel Priory and St Cuthbert’s, Wells.
In 2006 they performed a newly prepared edition of Cavalli’s Vespers (1656) with period instrument orchestra with great success. This was edited by the choir’s director, Graham Coatman, who will be familiar in Hexham as the new Artistic Director of Hexham Abbey Festival. The edition has been revised for this performance, and is due for future publication by King’s Music. With its scoring for double choir with soloists and contrasting groups of period baroque instruments the work will make a splendidly sonorous impact in Hexham’s fine mediaeval abbey.
St Mark’s Basilica, Venice was at the height of its rise to fame and fortune in the mid 17th century, and Cavalli followed the famed Monteverdi as maestro di cappella there – probably the most important musical appointment in Italy at the time. Venice celebrated everything with great pomp and ceremony. So the music Cavalli provided for his setting of the Vespers is on a par with the better known setting by Monteverdi, utilising double choir, soloists, and an impressive array of instruments including cornetti, sackbuts, theorbo and lute alongside strings, harpsichord and organ.
This spectacular reconstruction of music for the great basilica of St Mark in Venice will make use of the splendid acoustic of Hexham Abbey. Cavalli was best known for his operas – even writing one for the marriage of Louis XIV of France and Marie Antoinette – and his music is full of colour and drama, athletic solos interspersed with lyrical instrumental interludes, and dancing rhythms.
The performance will be complemented by music from other Venetian composers, including Giovanni Rovetta and Alessandro Grandi alongside the more familiar Monteverdi and Giovanni Gabrieli.
The Leeds Guild of Singers has presented many choral favourites over the years since its foundation in 1948. Mostly the repertoire is unaccompanied, recently including Victoria’s Requiem and regularly music by Byrd, Tallis and other Tudor composers. The choir has also performed larger works with orchestra, including Mozart’s Requiem, Fauré’s Requiem, Haydn’s Creation and most recently that other Vespers setting by Monteverdi! The choir’s members hail from various parts of the world, including Czechoslvakia, Holland, Germany and Scotland - but for at least two the visit to Hexham will be a return to their native Northumberland!

LEEDS GUILD OF SINGERS was formed in 1948 as a small group of professional and semi-professional singers to encourage high standards of music making in Leeds. The choir has always maintained a close relationship with the Music Department at Leeds University, many of its conductors being on the staff of the University. The choir has always taken an enterprising approach to its performances, commissioning and performing a number of new works, including Songs from Mount Grace by Philip Wilby in 1998 for the choir’s Jubilee celebrations. Currently there are about 30 singers in the choir. The Guild gives up to 10 concerts each season, mainly in Yorkshire, often for charity, but has performed in venues including Fountains Abbey, Ripley Castle, Cartmel Priory, St Cuthbert’s, Wells and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, Glasgow. Repertoire ranges across seven centuries, mostly a cappella sacred and secular music.
Graham Coatman has been musical director of Leeds Guild of Singers for the past 6 years. He is an established composer, musical director and pianist. He lectures in composition and performance studies at Leeds College of Music, and was until recently National Project Manager for CP4P (Creative Partners for Progression) a major HEFCE action research project into creativity in education. He has previously led major community and education projects with Welsh National Opera, Opera North and orchestras including BBC Philharmonic. He took over as Artistic Director of Hexham Abbey Festival in 2007.

LGS:
Gill Knowles tel: 0113 273 7477
Publicity officer email: knowles.shadwell@ntlworld.com
Graham Coatman: tel/fax: 01274 599379 or mobile: 07979 866303
(musical director) email: grummc@btinternet.com

Visit Leeds Guild of Singers website at www.leedsguildofsingers.org.uk

MITA:
Hugh Morris tel: 01434 602031
email: hugh.morris@talk21.com

Tickets available at the door. Prices in brackets apply to OAPs and students. (A) denotes tickets available in advance from Hexham Abbey Gift Shop.
Concerts marked with * include a glass of wine or soft drink.