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E-mail: ece@paulspicer.com
Website: https://englishchoralexperience.co.uk

NEWSLETTER No.18

Dear Friends

It is a while since I put a newsletter together and I felt it was time to be in touch at the start of this new year which I hope will be a good one for us all, and certainly a healthier one for me than 2024!

2025 is a pivotal year for ECE as it will be the first without a week at Dore Abbey in July which will feel very strange after seventeen years. It is also the year in which we are having our final course in France as I start to do some slowing down. This doesn’t mean that I am bringing the ECE operation to a gentle close, but I am choosing to focus on shorter courses. These will continue at Orford (upper voices), and St. Cross, Winchester. We are also continuing at the wonderful St. George’s, Cullercoats this year.

The course at Cullercoats (16-18 May 2025) is open for booking and we are looking forward to singing in that beautiful acoustic again with a wide-ranging repertoire from Tallis and the ever-inspiring 16th century composer Dominique Phinot, through Purcell to Rachmaninoff, Lauridsen, Philip Moore and Gerald Finzi. There should be something for everyone! And then there is the church’s fabulous location almost falling into the sea. Do come and join us.

There is plenty of reasonably-priced accommodation locally, but the Tynemouth Castle Hotel is offering a 15% discount to people coming on the course if you use the code ECE2025. It is only a few minutes walk from the church.

The course at Orford is now live and features some beautiful, varied music for us to sing in this lovely church with its wonderful acoustic and fabulous location. It is so full of resonances of Britten and the Aldeburgh Festival as the place where Noyes Fludde and the Canticles were first performed. Orford Ness is a short walk away with its atmospheric quay. The dates for the weekend are 13/14 September 2025.

The Winchester weekend is also now live and the dates are 18/19 October 2025. I have chosen some very special repertoire for this weekend pairing Purcell and Britten (who was so influenced by Purcell) and adding music by William Boyce and William Walton. The Britten is his wonderful Hymn to St.Cecilia which will be challenging but fun, I hope!

I bring the very sad news to all who knew him that Robert Grew died peacefully in his sleep on the 18th January. He had not been well for some while and they were away from home when it happened. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with Helen at this time. The funeral will take place in Lichfield Cathedral on 18 February at 11am. All are, of course, very welcome.

Robert was a regular attender of our courses especially at Abbey Dore and in France. He was a good first bass and was a member of the organising committee along with Helen. He had been able to develop his love of painting through the afternoon workshops at Abbey Dore and he produced some lovely paintings over the years. His infectious sense of humour, his wonderfully silly jokes, his deeply caring nature and his willingness to help anyone at any time endeared him to all who knew him. He was a simply lovely man. He is much missed.

I very much want to continue the connection with Abbey Dore as well as helping to ensure that this beautiful building is used as much as possible. I am therefore planning a Bach St. John Passion course from 8-11 April 2026, the week after Easter when, as this year, we would normally be going to France.

This will involve period instrumentalists and soloists and we would put on a full public performance on the Saturday evening. Thomas Mottershead will, again, be my assistant conductor and we will be able to work separately with choir and orchestra for part of the time. The choir will come a day before the orchestra so we can make a head start.

I hope very much that this will be of real interest to many of you and that we will have a really good turn-out. Booking will not open quite yet as there are still many details to be worked through, but you will be advised by e-mail when you can sign up.

We are always seeking out new venues which would work well for the kind of courses we run and if anyone wishes to recommend somewhere with good accommodation, rehearsal and performance space please get in touch.

I hope you have a very happy 2025 and that you will be able to come and sing with us during the year.

With all good wishes