Photo: Craig Shaw photography
Cross Currents – music from both sides of the Atlantic
Press release
Hepton Singers, the well-respected chamber choir based in the Calder Valley, will be performing in Todmorden for the first time in fifteen years on Saturday 16th November.
The concert, which will be held in St Mary’s Church, is a fundraiser for Overgate Hospice. The programme includes choral works by Vaughan Williams, Holst and the twentieth-century British composer Edmund Rubbra, alongside several works by living composers. The choir will be singing Drop Down Ye Heavens, a short piece by the Master of the Queen’s Music Judith Weir, one of Britain’s most eminent composers. Also featured is an arrangement of the folk song Black is the Colour by Amy Bebbington, a setting of a poem by Emily Dickinson by Chris Legg, and an exciting modern choral work by Kerry Andrew, O Nata Lux.
As well as the programming of pieces by British composers, the choir will also be performing choral works from US-based composers Morten Lauridsen and Ola Gjeilo.
The choir will also offer arrangements of three very popular spirituals, Steal Away, Deep River and (perhaps in tribute to past flooding experiences in the Calder valley) Didn’t It Rain.
The Hepton Singers’ Musical Director Richard Bunzl said: “Our last concert paid tribute to European choral music, and now we are offering a transatlantic mixture of both sacred and secular music. As well as firm favourites like the three spirituals, we’ll also be offering performances of pieces much less frequently heard. There is a fantastic range of good a capella choral music being written for choirs at the moment which we are reflecting in the programme. There should be something for everyone.”
Tickets for the concert are available online (or on the door, and are priced at £9/£6, with a special £1 ticket for under 18s.
The Hepton Singers will also be staging their usual Autumn concert at Heptonstall Church, at 7.30pm on Saturday 30th November. Tickets for this concert are also available online.
Cross Currents – music from both sides of the Atlantic
This year’s autumn Hepton Singers concert will have a strong transatlantic feel to it. The programme includes part-songs by Holst and Vaughan Williams alongside more recent works by Kerry Andrew and Master of the Queen’s music, Judith Weir. There will also be a rare opportunity to hear the striking music of Edmund Rubbra. From across the Pond, the concert will include a modern American classic by Morten Lauridsen, a musical setting of words by Emily Dickinson, and pieces from the Spirituals tradition.
