The Hepton Singers

NEWS: our next performance is at Heptonstall Parish Church on Sat 28th June 2008

About the concert which took place on Saturday 7th July at Heptonstall Parish Church

Press release in advance of the concert:
Once again The Hepton Singers, the local chamber choir in Hebden Bridge, will be performing in this year's Hebden Bridge Arts Festival. The concert on Saturday 7th July at 8.00pm in Heptonstall Parish Church includes a half of early sacred music and a half of 20th and 21st Century secular music including the first performance of a work by the choir's director Alison West.

The concert opens with sacred motets by three Spanish renaissance composers, Francisco de Peñalosa and Francisco Guerrero who worked in Seville in the 16th Century and José de Torres who was Maestro de Capilla at the Royal Chapel in Madrid in the 17th Century. The principal work in the first half is by Antonin Tucapsky. His Five Psalms was composed in 2001 and like his Five Lenten Motets which The Hepton Singers have enjoyed performing for many years' is a dramatic composition of contrasting sections based on latin texts. Antonín Tucapský is a Czech composer from Moravia. who has lived in England since 1975.

The beginning oif the second half of the programme has links with the choir's visit last year to Budapest. The Romanian composer Gyorgy Orban has worked most of his life at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy there as Professor of Composition. Daemon Irripit Callidus was composed in 1995. The remaining works in the programme are essentially English.. This have I done for my true love which Gustav Holst composed in 1919 is based on a popular Cornish carol which is better known as Tomorrow shall be my dancing day .Geoffrey Adams' It is the evening hour was written for The Hepton Singers in 1994 when Geoff. was a member of the choir. The words are from a poem by John Clare.

The final work in the concert, Rehearsing the Languages of Birds , is Alison West's first serious composition. The text which is derived from the second act of a 3-act play by local writer Donald Atkinson divides into three sections. The first and last of these introduce Duine and his twin sisters Anne and Mie. It describes the relationship between the sisters, their joy and playfulness and the depth of the love they feel for each other. The middle and longest section is a choral rendition of their imitations of bird calls. Alison West was asked to set the words to music by the author after he saw the choir perform African songs 18 months ago. He thought that the interlocking cross-rhythms of African music would work well with the bird calls in the poem. The piece has been inspired by this and the sounds and behaviour of birds in the wild.

Tickets are available from the Festival Shop on Albert Street, Hebden Bridge, telephone 01422-842684 or on the door for £8 (£6 concessions and £2 students). For further information contact 01422-844627.