new music wells 77-17: a feast of contemporary music!

The choristers are preparing to take part in Wells Cathedral's tenth annual festival of new music: new music wells 77-17, to be held from Sunday 15 – Thursday 19 October 2017.

Building on the success of previous years, all music during the Cathedral’s services and at four special concerts will be selected from repertoire written over the last 40 years - no mean feat for any cathedral choir! Click on the poster above to enlarge it for more information on all the world premieres that will be taking place.

This year’s distinguished Composer-in-Residence is Howard Skempton, who celebrates his 70th birthday shortly after the festival. He will have two works premiered by Wells Cathedral Choir on Thursday 19 October at the 5.15pm service of Choral Evensong. The festival will also include world premiere performances of works by Professor Philip Wilby, Francis Jackson (in celebration of his 100th birthday on 2 October), and Rebecca Farthing, who is a student at Wells Cathedral School.

In other events, Lord (Michael) Berkeley CBE – presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions will be in conversation with fellow composers Howard Skempton and Philip Wilby on Wednesday 19 October: Composer Conversations with Michael Berkeley begins at 2.30pm in the Education Room. Skempton will give a public composition masterclass in Cedars Hall on the afternoon of Thursday 19 October, working with students from Wells Cathedral School. Admission to all of these events is free.

There will be four lunchtime concerts during the week, all starting at 1.05pm in the North Transept of the Cathedral:

Monday 16 October – A Contemporary Song Recital with Edward Goater and Christopher Sheldrake

Tuesday 17 October – Students from Wells Cathedral School will perform music by the school’s student composers

Wednesday 18 October – Students from Wells Cathedral School will perform compositions by this year’s featured composer, Howard Skempton

Thursday 19 October – Organist and Master of the Choristers, Matthew Owens, will give an organ recital featuring music by Judith Bingham (President of the festival), Philip Glass, Howard Skempton, Lionel Rogg, and Philip Wilby

Admission to all four concerts is free, with retiring collections to support Wells Cathedral Music.

A new innovation within this year’s new music wells festival is new music bells which will see the Cathedral’s bell ringers performing a piece by Howard Skempton on the final day of events: Five Rings Triples was commissioned for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad Project and receives its South West premiere of the Five Rings Doubles version on Thursday 19 October at 4.30pm.

Founded in 2008 by Matthew Owens, Organist and Master of the Choristers, this innovative festival is a retrospective of sacred choral and organ music of the previous forty years during all services, together with world premiere performances by Wells Cathedral Choir and organists of music by internationally renowned composers, local composers, and composition students from Wells Cathedral School. There are also concerts and a public masterclass with the featured composer of the year. The festival’s President is British composer, Judith Bingham, following on from the late Jonathan Harvey.

A Visit to Evercreech

Wells Cathedral Choristers and Cake!.jpg

The sun shone for this afternoon's visit of the boys and men to St Peter's Church, Evercreech. As part of the choir's outreach programme, each term either the boys and men or girls and men travel to a different church in the diocese to sing Choral Evensong. Today's service was a great success with the church filled to capacity as local parishioners came to hear the choir sing this traditional choral service. Needless to say, the generous provision of tea and cake was much appreciated by all afterwards!

Some Congratulations!

We need to offer two votes of congratulations today. The first goes to our new boy Head Chorister, Taylor who was installed last week after his predecessor's voice took its natural course rather earlier in the year than anticipated! We've heard Taylor's voice as soloist on many occasions and look forward to hearing it much more as we wish him all the very best in his tenure. Of course, we are very sad to see the former Head Chorister, Bailey leave but wish him all the best for the future and look forward to giving him a proper send-off in due course. Secondly, we're delighted to congratulate Matthew Owens on his installation today as a Prebendary of Wells Cathedral. A first for an Organist at Wells Cathedral, as far as we know! Matthew and Taylor are pictured here with Deputy Head Chorister, Xavier.

World Premiere for World Peace Day

Evensong at Wells Cathedral today marked World Peace Day and involved massed choirs gathered from across the diocese as part of the One Day One Choir project. The choirs joined the Cathedral Choir in the world premiere of the specially-commissioned anthem Blessing of Peace by US composer Gary Davison. It was a wonderful work and fitted the occasion perfectly with its apposite texts. The Choir have recorded two discs of Davison's work and were especially delighted to welcome him back to Wells for the premiere.

The choir also sang the canticles from the Gloucester Service by Herbert Howells. Written in the aftermath of the Second World War, the music of these canticles radiated a sense of hope. Amongst the massed choirs were our very own Song Squad - Wells Cathedral Junior Choir - who sang with real gusto! And some of our former choristers came to sing as part of Wells Cathedral School Chapel Choir and were delighted to be reunited with Gary, whose music they recorded during the chorister careers. It was a very special occasion!

Joubert Disc Receives its First Review

The Cathedral Choir’s latest CD recording of works by veteran composer John Joubert, is now on general release and has received its first review. All of the works featured were commissioned for Wells and were given their first performances by the choir. The programme has at its heart the extended St Mark Passion - a profound and heartfelt retelling of the well-known passion story - which is recorded alongside the expansive Missa Wellensis, and Joubert’s vivid and powerful setting of Locus iste.

John Joubert relationship with the choir began when he visited Wells in 2013 as composer-in-residence for the new music wells 1973-2013 festival, during which the choir performed the premieres of both the Missa Wellensis, Op.174 and Locus Iste Op.175. The relationship flourished and on Palm Sunday 2016 (which happened to be the composer's 89th birthday) the choir gave the premiere of his St Mark Passion in a liturgical setting. The work was repeated on Palm Sunday this year before the choir embarked on the recording as part of the celebrations for the composer's 90th birthday. The choir are joined on the disc by soloists Peter Auty (tenor), Benjamin Bevan (baritone), and Richard May (cello). They were also delighted to welcome back former Assistant Organist, David Bednall to play the organ.

The CD has received its first review from online music journalist, Robert Hugill. The review can be found here.

John Joubert was born in Cape Town in 1927. Aged 19 he won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London and has lived and worked in England ever since. Joubert's long composing career encompasses all genres from symphonic, operatic and chamber works to ever-popular choral miniatures such as Torches and There is no rose.

Excerpts of sample tracks from the CD can be found on our On the Record page.

This very special disc is available from the Cathedral Shops and for a limited time will be available at the special price of £10. Please call the Shop to check availability on 01749 672 773.

A New Choir Year

It was a great delight to welcome back the Cathedral Choir on Saturday for the start of the Choir Year. The packed service in the nave also gave opportunity to welcome the newest members of the Music Foundation; the new Probationers -Gabriel, William, Ollie, and Amelia; three new Choral Scholars - Harry Guthrie, Oliver Chubb, and Finn Lacey (a former head chorister of Wells); and not forgetting our new Assistant Organist, Jeremy Cole; and Organ Scholar, Joshua Stephens. We offer them the warmest of welcomes to Wells.

It was also a delight to congratulate the new Head and Deputy Head Choristers who all received their medals of office at the service; Bailey and Jessica, who become Head Boy Chorister and Head Girl Chorister, respectively; and Xavier and Taylor, and Harriet and Beth, who will become Deputy Head Boy and Girl Choristers.

Last but certainly not least, we offer our heartfelt congratulations to those choristers who have passed their year's probation and were admitted to the choir as full surpliced choristers - Harry, William, George, and Elsa. Bravo!

Cathedral Super Choir CD Tops The Charts

50 choristers from cathedrals across the UK joined forces with St Paul’s Cathedral Choir for a new album entitled ‘Jubilate: 500 Years of Cathedral Music’, released by Decca Classics and Classic FM on 17th March. Since we featured an article about the CD back in February, it has since been released and shot to the top of the classical music charts.

Our very own Astrid Rose-Edwards (pictured above singing in her blue cassock with the massed choir), then Head Girl Chorister, was the representative from Wells. Astrid said:

'In January, I went to Saint Paul's Cathedral with 50 other choristers from around Britain, as well as the choristers from Saint Paul's Cathedral. I made friends with a lot of the choristers there, because we all had something in common! With Andrew Carwood conducting we soon finished the recording and were all tired after working so hard. It was a great opportunity and I'm so glad that i made so many friends there as well.'

Every copy of the album sold will raise money for the ‘Diamond Fund for Choristers’, which aims to help young choral singers and secure the future of cathedral music. It is supported by Classic FM presenter Alexander Armstrong – a former choirboy himself – who hails becoming a chorister as “the greatest leg-up a child can be given in life”. Alexander spoke to Andrew Carwood about his chorister years and you can watch this interview in the video below (apologies for the poor sound quality!).

The album, which celebrates 500 years of cathedral music with a host of famous choral tunes, was recorded in the astonishing acoustics of St Paul’s Cathedral – with its 8-second echo! St Paul’s Cathedral Choir has been performing in London’s iconic venue for nearly 900 years, making it one of the world’s oldest and most illustrious cathedral choirs.

The songs on the album span five centuries – from Thomas Tallis’ Salvator Mundi to Paul Mealor’s Ubi Caritas, with Handel, Mendelssohn, Vaughan Williams and more between. There is also a special arrangement by John Rutter of A Gaelic Blessing, sung by fomer chorister, Aled Jones. Most of the music chosen for the album was written by composers who themselves were former choristers, from William Byrd and Henry Purcell (Westminster) to William Walton (Christ Church, Oxford).

New Music List Now Available

The Cathedral's latest Service and Music list is now available. There are many musical highlights to look out for and you may also notice that the Cathedral Choir is recording over the next couple of months - more on that soon! Please CLICK HERE to go to our In Performance page from where you can download the Music List in PDF form. Alternatively, hard copies can be collected from the Cathedral. We hope to see you at a service soon!

Former Choristers fill the Cathedral with 'a joyful noise'!

The annual Wells Cathedral Choir Association reunion took place on 28th April as former choristers from across the years joined the Great Choir for sung Evensong singing C V Stanford's Evening Canticles in A and his beautiful motet, Beati quorum via. The enhanced choir, with an age range of 15 to 80, made itself well and truly heard, filling the cathedral with ‘a joyful noise’. The day finished with a well-earned drink and dinner at The Fountain Inn, with lots of choir tales of yesteryear. 

 
 
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