Go Beyond The Chamber For Some Outstanding Choral Music

Published on: 18 Jun, 2014
Updated on: 18 Jun, 2014

Fresh from their Gold Cup and triple class cup wins at Cheltenham Music Festival in May, Surrey Hills Chamber Choir continues to surprise and delight its audiences and is preparing another innovative and eclectic repertoire for its summer concert, Beyond the Chamber’, at St Nicolas Church, Guildford on Saturday, July 12.

Surrey Hills Chamber Choir.

Beyond the Chamber was conceived as an opportunity to break down the boundaries of formal, classical music and open up a fresh and exciting programme of music to a wider audience.

Showcasing the very best in orchestral and choral chamber music from the professional Waverley Ensemble and multi-award winning Surrey Hills Chamber Choir, Beyond the Chamber promises an evening of great contrasts from the Baroque and classical highlights of Vivaldi, Mozart and Haydn to emotionally charged spirituals, folk tunes and other choral songs – with the choral ensembles all delivered in the Surrey Hills’ highly expressive and largely unconducted style.

The Waverley Ensemble will be led by the internationally acclaimed violinist and Baroque specialist, Ishani Bhoola, who founded the Baroque string group. The group perform regular concerts in Haslemere and have already attracted a loyal audience.

The idea for Beyond the Chamber was conceived after one of the Waverley Ensemble’s players was so impressed by the performances of Surrey Hills Chamber Choir last summer that she thought it would be wonderful for the two groups to combine to provide an evening of exceptionally high quality music.

The groups will combine for Magnificat by Vivaldi as well as performing items separately: Divertimento No 1 by Mozart; Quartet Op 64, No 5 by Haydn; English folks songs, spirituals and songs by Lotti, Mendelssohn, Tavener, Whitacre and Guillaume.

Following on from the Surrey Hills Chamber Choir’s sell-out Christmas concert, this concert will again be held at the beautiful setting of St Nicolas Church at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £14 for adults and £5 for under 16s (ticket price includes a drink and programme) and are available to buy online from www.surreyhills-choirs.co.uk or on the door.

Surrey Hills Chamber Choir took four trophies including the Festival Gold Cup in the Choirs classes at the renowned Cheltenham Performing Arts Festival on May 17.

The choir came top in each of its three competition classes, taking the Ethel Salisbury Challenge Cup in the Folk Song class, the Lily Ames Memorial Challenge Cup in the Sacred Music class and the Chamber of Commerce Challenge Cup in the Mixed Voice Choirs class, in which it was awarded the highest possible mark the judge was allowed to give.

To top off each of these individual triumphs, the choir was awarded the Gold Cup for the most memorable performance of the day.

The competition was adjudicated by Jeffrey Wynn-Davies, a renowned oratorio soloist, music director and international choral competition judge.

Of the choir’s various performances, Mr Wynn-Davies said: “It was a distinguished performance… A fine chamber choir, with individual voices and choral texture of a high standard and of the Sacred class… Hugely impressive… The result is spell binding.”