Next term, I have decided to continue the idea of extracts from substantial works, and to resurrect some of the music we were rehearsing for the Concert on 4 April 2020, when we had to cease rehearsals due to the outbreak of the pandemic. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy having an orchestra again in the future, but for now, we are fortunate in having our supremely confident accompanist, Richard Lennox. The venue will probably be either the Methodist Church or the Gordano School Hall.

I have included two works that we were rehearsing in March 2020 for the concert on April 4th; excerpts from Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise and Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens. It would be good to feel that that rehearsal time had not gone to waste.

There will also be excerpts from my She Walks in Beauty, a work I composed twenty years ago to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Because our concert will take place within her Platinum Jubilee Year, some of the music will have Royal associations. As in past concerts, there will also be some instrumental music.

Our soloists will be Eloise Routledge, who sang in our Summer concert (‘An Evening at the Opera’) in June 2015 and in our Poulenc Gloria in December 2016, and Edward Goater lives in Somerset and has performed all over the UK.