OUR CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMNIST LIZ LEATHERDALE, FOUNDER AND OWNER OF COLCHESTER CLASSICS, BRINGS YOU HER PICK OF DECEMBER’S CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENTS IN, AND AROUND, COLCHESTER.
Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and praise – the festive season has arrived!
This month is full of music celebrating Christmas with a cornucopia of concerts – some crammed full with carols.
Here Comes Christmas is the popular annual concert of music for voices, brass quintet and organ held in the Edwardian splendour of Colchester’s Town Hall. Colchester Choral Society, conducted by Ian Ray, will be joined by children from both Birch Primary and Heathlands Primary Schools and accompanied by organist Dr Gillian Ward-Russell. After the concert there is a chance to pop to the Mayor’s Parlour for some mulled wine and festive treats. Sunday December 10 at 4pm in Colchester’s Moot Hall.
Tickets: £8 from Manns Music, Colchester.
Next Saturday (16 December), Gillian Ward-Russell will be conducting the Maldon Choral Society in a Christmas Carol Concert featuring the choir of Elm Green School. Saturday December 16 at 7.30pm in All Saints’ Church, Maldon.
Tickets: £7 on the door.
Often considered to be the music for Christmas, Handel’s popular oratorio, Messiah, is sung in full or part at this time year. On Saturday 9 December, the Choir of St Mary’s Maldon will be joined by its favourite orchestra, Pegasus Baroque, in a full performance of the famous oratorio conducted by Colin Baldy. The performance is on Saturday 9 December at 7.30pm in St Mary’s Church, Church Street, Maldon. CM9 5HP.
Tickets are available from the Maldon Tourist Board (01621 856503) and on Eventbrite.
Also on Saturday 9 December Philip Smith will be directing the St Botolph’s Music Society Orchestra from the keyboard in music by J S Bach. Scarlatti’s Christmas Cantata and the world premiere of Nativity Thoughts, composed by the Society’s founder Colin Nicholson, will be performed by the society’s choir and orchestra. Saturday December 9 at St Botolph’s Church, Colchester from 7.30pm.
Tickets: £12 www.sbms.org.uk
Conductor Patrick McCarthy and his orchestra, the Colchester Philharmonic, will be accompanying Christmas concerts on the next two Saturdays. On December 9 they will be at Witham Public Hall with Witham Choral presenting Sing Christmas! at 7.30 p.m. including excerpts from Messiah, audience carols and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols with baritone soloist Alastair Merry.
Tickets £12 and £5 (full-time education) at the door or phone 0345 017 8717.
On 16 December the Harwich & Dovercourt Choral Society will perform Messiah Part One with mezzo Elaine Henson and famous carols by Holst and Rutter plus carols for audience. The concert starts at 7.00 p.m. in St Nicholas’ Church, Harwich.
Tickets are £12 and £3 (full-time education) at the door.
If you have a forthcoming concert of classical music, you would like previewed, contact Liz Leatherdale on 0800 999 6994.
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Liz Leatherdale