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Summer Concert 2021

6:30pm, Sun, 25 Jul 2021

  • Event Details
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  • Type of event: Concert
    Start time: 6:30pm
    Venue: St Mellitus Church
    Tollington Park
    London
    N4 3AG
    Description:

    Image of a dove in flightWe are very pleased that we are able to return to a semblance of normality and resume our concert seasons, albeit in a COVID safe way and with a reduction in audience numbers.

    Our concert is in conjunction with the Queen's Park Singers 

    Tickets can be purchased here
     

    Programme:

    • Richard Wagner - Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

    • Leos Janácek - Ríkadla

    • Gabriel Fauré - Requiem

    We shall open with the rousing Prelude to Wagner's Meistersinger.  The choir will then join us for Fauré's wonderful, consoling Requiem, and for the world premiere of our conductor Oliver Till's arrangement of Janácek;s Ríkadla.

    Here is what Ollie says about this charming piece:

    "Ríkadlo (pl. Ríkadla) comes from the Czech verb Ríkat (to say) and describes a genre of children's literature consisting of short nonsense rhymes, where the humour is based on sound, absurdities and word games.

    Leoš Janácek initially wrote 8 songs (Ríkadla) in the summer of 1925 and he obviously enjoyed the process as the following year he expanded it to 18 songs and an instrumental introduction. Each song is inspired by a cartoon from his favourite newspaper: Lidové Noviny (The People’s News), the oldest Czech daily still in print, and Ríkadla is actually the third of Janácek's works to be inspired by this newspaper after a song cycle and an opera.

    "The laughable original orchestration complements the tone and content of the rhymes, and this new arrangement sets the work for a small orchestra and choir. The new English version by Benedict Pope was commissioned for this concert and aims to save the childlike element as well as meaning & rhyme from the original."