Chester Music Society Choir will be joined by two soloists for a concert at Chester Cathedral on Saturday, March 21 which features a programme perfect for the build up to Easter.
Czech composer Antonin Dvorak is well known for writing lyrical and approachable music. His Mass in D is no exception to this and a performance of this work will be the centrepiece of the concert.
Coupled with the Dvorak will be a unique performance for Chester of Bryan Kelly’s Crucifixion. The music for this cantata was written by Kelly while he was living and working in Cairo.
The text was devised by Anne Ridler and consists of traditional biblical extracts, alongside poems written by George Herbert (Whither, O Whither) and Anne Ridler herself (Hope sang at your cradle, son), as well as stanzas from The Shield of Achilles by WH Auden.
An assured, imaginative,and tightly constructed work, Crucifixion is arranged for choir, soprano and tenor soloists and organ – the full forces of which are brought together in the striking final section.
The concert will also include the Pie Jesu from Duruflé’s Requiem, and a Trilogy of War Poems composed by the choir’s music director Graham Jordan Ellis and based on Anthem for Doomed Youth, At A Calvary near the Ancre and The Send-Off, by Wilfred Owen.
The soloists on March 21 will be soprano Susan Marrs and Chester-born tenor Jonathan Cooke. Organ accompaniment will be provided by the cathedral’s director of music Philip Rushforth.
Tickets (£13 and £7) are available at the cathedral ticket desk or by telephone on 01244 505959.
