The Cherwell Singers, joined by pianist Steven Grahl, presents a
summer concert on Sunday July 3rd at 7.30pm at the Grove Auditorium,
Magdalen College.
Entitled "Hark! what glorious sounds!" ( a line from Elgar's "Songs from
the Bavarian highlands" with which we begin the concert) it is a
celebration of folksongs and songs in arrangements from the twentieth
century.
Folksong speaks of the joys and sorrows of life with its universal themes
of landscape, nature, nostalgia and, of course, love. These shared values
speak to everyone, perhaps more so than any other musical form, and were
the original popular music of their day. In a nod to the development that
song was later to take in this direction we include in our programme some
arrangements of favourite popular songs from the mid twentieth century
with the addition of a jazz trio.
The transition from the countryside to the concert hall has given the
originally simple and instantly attractive melodies of folksong a new
lease of life as the starting point for new and artful arrangements by
living composers of today such as Rutter, Archer, Chilcott, Erb and
Higginbottom (all of whom are featured in our concert in arrangements of
familiar songs such as Londonderry Air, Shenandoah and Early one morning).
Thus folksong succesfully survived the transition into the moderm
mechanised world largely thanks to the efforts of those composers such as
Elgar and Vaughan-Williams who collected and catalogued it from the oral
tradition. The pastoral setting of the Grove Auditiorium backing on to the
gardens and deer park of Magdalen College provides a suitable setting for
this music and we do hope you will be able to join us.
James Brown (Director)
Ticket are £10 (£8) at the door.
Entrance on Longwall Street (map: <http://osm.org/go/eutD5NqNU--?m>)
For more information about the Cherwell Singers visit
<http://www.cherwellsingers.org/>