Music Festival 20th - 22nd June 2008
St Andrew's church held a music festival with an assortment of events during the weekend.
On Friday 20th we opened the festival with a cabaret and dinner. The evening was a great success with a wide range of entertainment including Good in Parts (a clerical barbershop quartet!), Songs from the Shows, Sketches, Cabaret acts, the Lambeth Walk and buffet dinner.
On Saturday morning the children took over the church with music workshops and performance for all school-age children followed by sandwiches and cake.
In the afternoon Trevor Dawson gave an organ recital as the audience tucked into a sumptuous cream tea.
In the evening there was a concert by Commotio, Oxford’s leading vocal ensemble who performed a selection of popular choral works.
On Sunday we had a Choral Eucharist with the Festival Choir followed by breakfast and lunch for visiting artists and guests.
In the evening a champagne reception was provided for The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dr Richard Chartres, The Bishop of London who met many of the church members and visiting guests after which he preached at the Choral Evensong.
Three new pieces were performed during the evensong:-
Peter Aston - Magnificat and Nunc Dimmitis in Bb
Jonathan Coffer - Gesthemane for Soloists, Choir and Organ (words by Rowan Williams) and
Martin Eastwood - Sacrificium Deo, only the second time this piece was performed.
The evening ended with wine and sausages.
See photos here.
See the write of the weekend by Roderic Dunnett here.
See the address by The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dr Richard Chartres, The Bishop of London here.
Biographies
Humphrey Clucas read English at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a Choral Scholar. Having taught English in schools for twenty-seven years, while maintaining a separate singing career, he finally gave up teaching on his
appointment to the choir of Westminster Abbey, from which he retired in 1999.
As a composer, he is self-taught. He has written a great deal of choral music,
much of it liturgical, and a growing body of organ music, with occasional
forays into other fields. His best-known work is still probably his earlier set
of Preces and Responses, written as an undergraduate in 1962.
Jonathan Coffer (b. 1989) is a first year undergraduate reading music at
Gonville and Caius College Cambridge. He studied composition with
Richard Causton at Wells Cathedral School. Competition successes include
winning the Senior Category in the BBC Guardian Young Composers'
Competition 2007, and the Young Composer's Prize in the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission Competition 2006. Resulting from these competitions,
Jonathan's music has been played in the Cadogan Hall, Wells Cathedral,
and has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 by Endymion and Peter
Wiegold. Recent works include a quintet commissioned for BBC Symphony
Orchestra Players, to be broadcast later in 2008. He is also interested
in Jazz, playing piano in several ensembles.
Peter Aston is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of East Anglia. His compositions include chamber music, choral and orchestral works and a children’s opera, but he is best known as a composer of church music, much of which is performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world. He is active internationally as a conductor and lecturer, and has directed many courses and workshops for composers in the UK and overseas.
Trevor Dawson can claim an unbroken association with St. Andrew’s, having been baptised here as a baby. He started to learn the organ while a pupil at Westminster City School in London and became organist at St. Andrew’s at the age of 14. Trevor is a graduate of the University of London and an Associate of the Royal College of Organists. He is a senior teacher and director of music at St. Dunstan’s Primary School, Cheam in Surrey. In addition, Trevor is also musical director of the Sutton Primary Schools’ Music Festival, a concert involving 500 children which is held annually at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon.
See all the pics of the event Here