Parkside, Burnthill Lane, Rugeley, Staffordshire WS15 2HX
Mob: +44(0)7866 770360

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

NEWSLETTER No.11

Dear Friends

I am just back from a wonderful week at Abbey Dore where nearly 60 singers arrived on Sunday 17th July and sang their hearts out for the rest of the week, giving an outstanding concert on the following Saturday. This included my commissioned Oceans of Eternal Thought, a seven movement cantata for choir and piano (wonderfully played by Mark Opstad) and with the soprano solo in the third movement beautifully sung by a regular member of the weekend courses, Brigitte Cornwell, who was at Abbey Dore for the first time this year. I want to thank everyone who contributed so generously to the commission which was a lifeline for me during the lockdown. Thank you so very much. The performance seemed to be very much enjoyed and several recordings were made and I hope we might be able to share the best of them with the ECE mailing list before long. We had a really skilled ‘student’ conductor, Thomas Mottershead, who has recently graduated with a masters degree in choral conducting from the Royal Welsh College. He was very popular with the choir and directed pieces with the main choir and did all the Consort work for Compline and the Sunday Eucharist. We thank him very warmly and wish him well for what will, I’m sure, be a very successful future.

We were, of course, very fortunate with the remarkable weather, though the much trailed apocalypse never really happened and we just enjoyed basking in lovely warmth!

Also at Abbey Dore we were thrilled to see the return of the exhibitions which are such a key part of the week and which we lost for the last pandemic years. Merryn Lloyd coordinated the whole thing and Julienne Braham gathered the exhibitors together. It was a wonderfully wide-ranging exhibition including some excellent related activities for people to enjoy in the afternoons.

Paul with Merryn Lloyd on the roof of the tower which is being re-leaded

A heart-stoppingly vertiginous view through a raised hatch in the south transept roof of the abbey!

Thomas Mottershead taking a rehearsal with Mark Opstad at the piano

Afternoon Monoprint Workshop with Artist-in-Residence, Sarah Jameson

The abbey in beautiful sunshine

The remains of the Chapter House which also forms our logo image

And so we now move on with the upper voices Camerata weekend at Orford taking place on 17/18 September. The music for this is ordered and will be sent out as soon as it arrives. I am writing another much shorter work for this weekend using poems by Thomas Hardy. There is still time to sign up for this course if you would like to come. We really need second altos. The balance at present is 9/10/9/3. If any 1st altos could volunteer to sing second it would help too. JOHN FLETCHER rehearsal files are now available for my piece (Any Little Old Song).

After this we go to Gregynog Hall on 8/9 October with people able to arrive and stay on the 7th and if they wish stay over until Monday too. We have had a reasonable take up for this course but we seriously need men. Please do think about joining us as it is so much less enjoyable if parts are stretched by low numbers. It is a beautiful place with a wonderful purpose-built Music Room with a fabulous acoustic. We are singing music all of which is associated with the hall, including a piece by Holst written specially for it and in manuscript. Please would you also advertise the course amongst singing friends and encourage them to sign up.

Gregynog Hall

Next year we go to Chateau Rieutort in the south of France near Montpellier between 12-19 April. We are so much looking forward to returning to this beautiful place where we will enjoy the wonders of Ken and Alison’s amazing catering. We were supposed to go there for both the last two years but these weeks had to be cancelled. But we will be sure to go this time (barring unforeseen disasters). I am working at putting the music programme together now and it will be live on the website soon.

We return to the beautiful Hospital of St. Cross Winchester on 6/7 May next year. Again, I am working on the programme for this now, too, and this course, always popular, will be advertised later in the summer.

Next year’s Abbey Dore week will run from 16-22 (23 for the Consort) July. Please put the dates in your diary and, as for all the courses, as soon as it is advertised the mailing list will be advised.

Orford Upper Voices will be 16/17 September and 7/8 October will probably be Cullercoats (just north of Newcastle) where we had such a successful course after Easter this year, but the church has yet to agree to the dates. Again, you will be informed when I have them confirmed.

I would be very grateful if you would pass the word around about these courses to other good singers. We need to keep growing and expand our database of experienced singers. If you have enjoyed the courses please let others know about them!

Finally, after seven years of writing, my biography of Sir Arthur Bliss will be published by the Crowood Press later in the year and is available now for pre-ordering if you are interested.

Just thinking of other things, I would be very pleased if any of the choirs you belong to would be interested in a Come & Sing day or a workshop. If any of you think it may be of interest, perhaps you might mention it to the powers that be? I enjoy doing these things!

I look forward very much to seeing many of you in the coming months and hope you have a wonderful summer in the meantime.

All good wishes