Warwick and Kenilworth Choral Society


Recent Concerts

Last Season

Our first concert of the 2006-7 season was a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary on November 18th 2006 at All Saints' Church in Leamington. This proved to be one of the choir's most difficult works, but ultimately the audience was treated to an excellent performance by choir, soloists and orchestra alike.

MendelssohnWe were accompanied by the outstanding 18th Century Concert Orchestra. They certainly justified the title of 'one of the finest exponents of baroque music in the country' (Oxford Times).

Then in December the choir performed its annual Messiah concert in Kenilworth to a record audience. Unfortunately the tenor soloist collapsed during the dress rehearsal and was rushed to hospital. We were grateful to David Manford, the previous year's tenor, for taking his place for the concert - a fantastic achievement when you consider he had had no notice at all and no opportunity to rehearse with the choir and orchestra.

Our March concert was a dramatic performance of Mendelssohn's ever-popular oratoria, Elijah. Although sections are often cut, we performed the work in its entirety. It was a long evening but hugely enjoyable.

Our summer concert was a performance of the delightful Fauré Requiem and the Shubert Mass in A flat.

The 2005-6 Season of Concerts

Our 2005-2006 season's concerts started in November with the Missa Solemnis by Beethoven. For this we were joined by the Sinfonia of Birmingham, the first time the choir had worked with this orchestra. A search of the archives shows that this was the first performance by the Society of this mighty choral work. In fact, Beethoven's choral music has only been performed twice before in the Society's history: the Mass in C in 1998 and the Choral Fantasia in 2001 (this sell-out concert also included his fifth piano concerto performed by Charles Matthews).

Beethoven After weeks of extremely challenging rehearsals (the work is very difficult) there was a real buzz when the choir got together with the orchestra on the day, and all agreed that the performance was a tremendous success. We felt very relieved and proud to have brought it off so satisfactorily. (Ron said that he was still on a high at the first rehearsal of the new term in January!)

December brought the annual Kenilworth performance of Messiah, with a slight difference this year: alterations to the church mean that more room has been created in the performance area, which gave us the opportunity to use a chamber orchestra with organ continuo rather than just organ accompaniment as in the past.

Handel's oratorio Solomon was our March concert, with our old friends from last year The 18th Century Concert Orchestra. This work provides lots of grand choruses, mostly for double choir, and also includes the famous Arrival of the Queen of Sheba which saw the soprano soloist make a stately progress down the aisle in a regal purple gown (she wore a green one in the earlier parts for her roles as Solomon's own queen and one of the women to whom Solomon delivers his famous judgement as to who is the rightful mother of a baby). We were grateful to Helen Meyerhoff and the tenor Andrew Mackenzie-Wicks for stepping in at short notice as the two originally-booked soloists had succumbed to illness. The audience for this Handel concert was encouragingly large, after the previous March's rather disappointing turnout for his Samson. Perhaps people had come to see what they missed last year!

Mozart's 250th birthday was duly celebrated at our summer concert, with performances of the Solemn Vespers, the Coronation Mass and Piano Concerto No 23 in which the soloist was once again our very own Colin Druce.

The 2004-5 Season of Concerts

Our 2004-2005 season began with a concert that included two favourites, the Mozart Requiem and his Clarinet Concerto (beautifully performed by Lucy Tugwell). The third work in the programme was the Poulenc Gloria which was a very French take on Latin church music and a fun work providing a great contrast to the rest of the concert. The only hitch in the programme came at the beginning; the concert start was delayed by 15 minutes as the conductor had to go home to retrieve the Poulenc score which he had left on the kitchen table!

Handel After the usual Messiah in December, the next challenge was Handel's Samson in March, which provided lots of work for the choir and a chance to hear the famous soprano solo Let the Bright Seraphim . The choir was joined by The 18th Century Concert Orchestra playing brilliantly on period instruments, and four first-rate soloists. We are especially grateful to the bass Charbel Mattar who stepped in at the very last minute in place of the indisposed Eddie Wade. It was disappointing that there were only around 150 bums on seats at this concert, but those who missed it had another chance to hear some superb Handel the following March when his Solomon was performed by the choir with the same orchestra.

The final concert of the 2004-2005 season was in June when sacred compositions by Verdi, Rossini and Pergolesi, three Italian composers who are all best known for their operatic works, were performed by the choir and soloists with Colin Druce at the organ. This concert was Ron Binnie's fortieth in charge of the choir. The Rossini Stabat Mater was wonderfully operatic, with some splendid solos, and the Verdi Sacred Pieces presented some real challenges: one of the pieces was for female voices alone, with words (by Dante) in Italian, which is very different from singing in Latin! The last of the Verdi set was for double choir, which presented its own problems as the choir's forces were somewhat depleted already, it being the summer when our numbers are usually lower than at other times. We were also treated to a piece by Liszt which Colin played on the organ.

2003-2004: The Choir's Fiftieth Anniversary

The 2003-2004 season was the Society's 50th Anniversary Season. This got off to a flying start with a performance of the Verdi Requiem in Leamington on St Cecilia's Day, November 22nd 2003. The annual performance of Handel's Messiah in Kenilworth followed on 16th December.

The next concert in the 50th Anniversary Season was on March 20th 2004 at All Saints Leamington, when we had a capacity audience in spite of the weather, with persistent rain and a wind strong enough to rattle the windows in the church. Our accompanist Colin Druce excelled himself as soloist in the Grieg Piano Concerto , and the choir performed two works by Brahms and the St Cecilia Mass by Gounod, which was great fun and very French.

Our summer concert, on June 12th 2004 at St Mary's, Warwick, was The Creation by Haydn. This choral favourite rounded off a very successful season and was followed a few days later by the annual dinner which was held at the Jephson Gardens restaurant in Leamington, which with its glass doors rolled right back proved to be a perfect venue on one of the hottest nights of the year.

Please click here for a full list of all concerts performed by the choir in the last few years.


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