Chamber choir offer rare treat
By Neil D’Arcy-Jones
Colchester’s newest choral ensemble are back, along with their international opera singer director. Direct from a leading role on the operatic stage at the Adelaide Festival, Australia, Roderick Earle takes up the baton to conduct the Colchester Chamber Choir for its second concert on Saturday.
Roderick started his career as a chorister at Winchester Cathedral, before going on to study at St John’s College, Cambridge. His choral career continued with a number of major professional choirs such as the BBC Singers, the London Sinfonietta and the Monteverdi Choir and it led him to set up the Colchester Chamber Choir last year. He said, “I wanted to rediscover those wonderful, spiritually uplifting works I sang, and sometimes conducted, at that time, and to perform them with a hand-picked, small choir”.
Another aim was to introduce audiences to less frequently heard music, often from composers better known for larger-scale works, and that’s what he hopes their second concert will do. Entitled Two Worlds, Choral treasures from Europe and America, it will open with an unaccompanied Ave Maris by the 19th century Italian Guiseppe Verdi, followed by pieces from composers such as Byrd, Philips, Mozart, Bruckner and Grieg. The second half is devoted to work by 20th century American composers, like Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber.
Roderick said: “These are pieces which really send shivers down your spine and leaving you wanting more. This is an opportunity to hear works rarely performed locally”
Colchester Chamber Choir
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