The Dorian Singers and Stowmarket Chorale are excited to announce that they will be holding two joint Summer Concerts, featuring two well-loved and widely contrasting works on a nautical theme. The choirs will perform together under Alan Loader and Christopher Moore, their musical directors, and the baritone Mark Saberton will feature in the solo parts.
Joseph Horovitz’s cantata in a popular style, “Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo”, with libretto by Michael Flanders (of Flanders and Swann Fame), is a lighthearted, but actually close, retelling of the Biblical Flood as described in Genesis chapters 6 to 9.
Put briefly, God gets very cross. But Noah, the laughing-stock of Fun City because of his strange boat-building enterprise, has two things going for him. A hot-line to God, and a tolerance for wildlife. Which is just as well, really. Because then it starts to rain….
The second featured work could hardly be more of a contrast. Charles Villiers Stanford’s “Songs of the Fleet” was premiered in 1910 and was considered somewhat old-fashioned even then. A cycle of five songs for baritone solo and mixed chorus, the songs are settings of poems by Sir Henry Newbolt, redolent with the feel of the sea and English naval tradition. Deeply Edwardian in feel, they tell of a kind of imperial grandeur and optimism which was all too soon to be overshadowed by the horror of the Great War, and Stanford’s reputation as composer would be likewise eclipsed by that of Sir Edward Elgar.
The first of the two concerts will be given at Trinity Methodist Church, Hamilton Road, Felixstowe, IP11 7AN, on Saturday 23rd June at 7.30 pm.
The second will take place at Stowmarket United Reformed Church, Ipswich Street, Stowmarket, IP14 1AD, on Saturday 7th July at 7.30 pm.
Tickets £12, available soon. Pictures etc available ASAP.
