Sing Gently: Welcoming our Guests

22 hours ago
3 min read

We're doing things a bit differently for our Springtime concert coming up this weekend on Saturday 21st March. We have invited some very special guests to collaborate with us for what promises to be a really lovely evening.

We will be joined by our friends The Lydian Choir from North Lincolnshire conducted by Susan Hollingworth BEM. Sue is a choral director known for her work in music education and choir training, particularly with young people. She is Vice President of the ABCD (Association of British Choral Directors) and, like our own director Simon Davies-Fidler, she has won the coveted BBC Choir of the Year competition conducting the Scunthorpe Cooperative Junior Choir, with whom she performed at the opening ceremony of the Millennium Dome and at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

In 2010 Sue was awarded the Choir Master of the Year by Gramophone Magazine and in 2013 she received a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for co-directing and commissioning Cycle Song, a huge community opera for the Cultural Olympiad with over 1000 participants. She has also directed her own Family Prom in the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. Sue is a visiting lecturer for the Royal Northern College of Music and is much in demand as a workshop leader and trainer of choirs and conductors. She was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2019 for her services to music.

As you will see from the programme below, Saturday's concert will be a mix of early, classical and contemporary pieces and with a departure from our usual a cappella style we will be joined by guest violinists Jane Nossek and Ed Cross who will accompany some of the pieces we're going to sing as well as play some duets from Shostakovich.

Originally from London, Jane Nossek graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in 1992 and is the Sub-Principal, First Violin with Royal Northern Sinfonia with whom she has been playing for 20 years. She was formerly the Principal Second Violin with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and is founder of the Nossek String Quartet. Jane will be joined in our concert on Saturday by violinist Ed Cross. Ed performs regularly with Royal Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Ballet, Opera North and St Endellion Festival Orchestra as well as giving solo and chamber performances around the North East, where he is based. He also teaches at The Glasshouse where he leads the Step Up Strings programme and teaches for the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT).

And last but not least, we are privileged to once again be joined by our good friend and local North East legend Len Young on piano. After teaching in Brixton for five years, we were extremely fortunate that Len moved to our region where he spent eleven years as Head of Music at Heaton/Heaton Manor School in Newcastle, ten years as Music Advisor for Newcastle upon Tyne LEA followed by thirteen years as Head of Music and Assistant Head (Arts College) at Queen Elizabeth High School in Hexham, Northumberland. He now works as a self-employed musician undertaking commissioned compositions, conducting various choirs and performing in a variety of accompaniment and solo piano roles.

SING GENTLY

Sublime choral music for Springtime

SATURDAY 21 MARCH, 7.30PM

St James' and St Basil's Church, Fenham, NE4 9XP

Tickets: £12, under 18s free

Available from: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sdfchoralevents

PROGRAMME:

Gloria from Missa Brevis - Jonathan Dove

Yugoslav Folk Songs - Matyas Seiber

Domine Non Secundum Peccata Nostra - James Macmillan

Crucifixus - Antonio Lotti

Sing Gently - Eric Whitacre