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Three concerts in Cambridge will be featuring Fand composers Philip Mead and Peter Thompson.
As well as more traditional fayre, St Augustine’s Singers with Cambridge Brass will be performing Mead’s Christmas Bells and Thompson’s Carol. In addition, in two of the concerts the Singers will be performing Philip Mead’s newly composed A Child is Born (2017).
Christmas Songs and Carols, including Mead’s Christmas Bells and Thompson’s Carol.
St Augustine’s Singers with Philip Mead, keyboard.
800th anniversary celebrations; see below for programme information.
Michaelhouse Lunchtime Carol Concert
The concerts on 9th and 16th December share the same programme:
| Mead | A Child is Born (new work, 2017) |
| Purcell | Man that is born of a woman |
| Handl | Resonet in Laudibus |
| Thompson | Carol |
| Prætorius | In dulci jubilo |
| Ives | Carol |
| Mead | Christmas Bells |
| Trad. | Ding Dong Merrily on High |
| Brandvick | A Yorkshire Wassail |
St Augustine’s Singers conducted by Philip Mead with Cambridge Brass and a peal of bells.
Last year, Fand published The Yorkshire Shepherds by Richard Hallas, a light-hearted medley on While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night written for a concert given by The Huddersfield Singers in December 2016. The piece was also taken up by the St Augustine’s Singers in Cambridge and performed later in the same month.
We are pleased to be able to present recordings of both performances. The Huddersfield Singers’ première (which includes audience participation at the end) is a stereo audio-only recording made on 3rd December 2016:
As for the second performance by Philip Mead’s St Augustine’s Singers, we have a video of it here on the Fand site and also on the Fand YouTube channel. Thanks once again to Dan Leighton for supplying the video and to the choir for permitting its performance to be shared in this way.
St Augustine’s Singers also performed Peter Thompson’s newly-published A Red, Red Rose at a concert on 12th November 2016, and again we are grateful to Dan Leighton for providing a video; we have taken the liberty of adding subtitles to it.
Several pieces of music published by Fand are due to be performed soon in Cambridge, in a number of concerts by the St Augustine’s Singers conducted by Philip Mead. Brief details are as follows:
Saving Lives at Sea, part 2: A programme of music on a nautical theme in aid of the RNLI, with a guest apperance of the Grimethorpe Colliery Band (details…); programme includes:
| Thompson | A Red, Red Rose |
| Spofforth | Hail, Smiling Morn |
Christmas Carol Service (see illustration, above) led by former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams; music includes:
| Mead | Christmas Bells |
| Thompson | Carol |
Michaelhouse Lunchtime Carol Concert; programme includes:
| Thompson | Carol |
| Hallas | The Yorkshire Shepherds |
The Huddersfield Singers will be putting on a special Christmas concert this year, entitled A Yorkshire Christmas. This is the event for which The Yorkshire Shepherds was composed, and the piece will receive its first performance at this concert (followed a fortnight later by the St Augustine’s Singers performance in Cambridge; see above).
A Yorkshire Christmas; programme includes:
| Spofforth | Hail, Smiling Morn |
| Hallas | The Yorkshire Shepherds (première) |
St Paul’s Hall is a very attractive former church (now part of the university campus) in the centre of Huddersfield, just across the road from a multi-storey car park. The concert will be compèred by the highly respected musician, Dr Simon Lindley (Organist Emeritus of Leeds Minster), with the Clifton Handbell Ringers as guests. Free seasonal alcohol-free punch will be served in the interval. More extensive details about this concert can be found on The Huddersfield Singers’ website.
International concert pianist Philip Mead is giving a FREE recital (with free refreshments also included) on Saturday, 10th September 2016 at 6:00 pm. Entitled The Romantic Muse, the concert forms part of the St Augustine’s Chamber Series. Donations towards St Augustine’s Music will be gratefully received.
| Beethoven | Sonata in C sharp minor, op. 27 no 2 (‘Moonlight’) |
| Chopin | Three Nocturnes |
| Bax | Legend |
| Liszt | St François de Paule marchant sur les flots |
The concert takes place at St Augustine’s Church, Richmond Road, Cambridge CB4 3PS.
Fand followers may like to know that a new video has been created for Peter Thompson’s delightful orchestral rhapsody, Hampshire Summers.
Although the audio recording itself is the same one that has been available on this site for some time (a performance by the Solent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Steve Tanner), a selection of appropriate Hampshire imagery has now been added to reflect the moods of the music, with the full approval of the composer. The new video can be seen below or, as usual, viewed on the Fand YouTube channel.
On Sunday, 6th March 2016, St Augustine’s Chamber Choir, Cambridge, conducted by Philip Mead, gave the world première performance of Peter Thompson’s arrangement of The Keys of Heaven.
We are delighted to be able to present a video of the performance here on the Fand site and also on the Fand YouTube channel. Very many thanks to Dan Leighton for supplying the video and to the choir for permitting its performance to be shared in this way.
Recently, Fand advertised an exciting lunchtime concert given last November by international pianist Philip Mead in Cambridge. The half-hour recital featured a programme of music by Sir Arnold Bax and Peter Thomspon, virtually all of it published by Fand, and four of the performances were world premières.
We are delighted to say that the concert was videoed, and we have been given permission to put the entire performance online. So whether or not you were able to attend in person, you can now sit back and enjoy the recital at your leisure! Click the embedded video below to watch the whole concert on this page, or find more details (including separate videos of each piece) on the concert information page.
The playlist can of course also be found on our YouTube channel.
World-renowned cellist Lionel Handy has released an outstanding new CD containing both the underrated Cello Concerto of Sir Arnold Bax and the totally unknown Cello Concerto of Stanley Bate, which Lionel Handy himself has transcribed, edited and prepared. This new CD represents not just the work’s first recording but indeed its very first performance. Lionel’s two previous CDs, BAX: Works for Cello and Piano and From Bohemia to Wessex were both produced with Fand’s involvement. Although the same is not true of this new Lyrita disc, Fand is nevertheless very excited by its arrival, and is delighted to make it available for sale at an advantageous price.
Another piece performed by Cara Thompson at her recent recital was Bax’s A Milking Sian. Again, though Fand does not publish this song, given our interest in Bax we thought that our regular visitors might enjoy hearing the performance. View it below or on our YouTube channel (direct link). Please note that the words are presented as optional subtitles over the video.
Cara Thompson performed Dawn, composed by her uncle, Peter Thompson, in a recent recital. We present here a video comprising an audio recording combined with appropriate imagery. View it below or on our YouTube channel (direct link to video). Please note that the words are presented as optional subtitles over the video.
Previous announcements may be found in the Fand News Archive.
