Musical Medley: Concerts and what's on in the Doncaster music scene this November

Doncaster Arts and Museum Society Lunchtime Recitals

This month’s recitals are:

8 November: Harmonix – an Upper voice capella choir

15 November: Musicians from Bootham School, York

22 November: Gary O’Shea – Piano

29 November: Aires and Grace Notes – From Leeds. Vocalists and piano accompaniment

1pm Doncaster Baptist Church, Chequer Road, DN1 2AL

Entry £5 on the door

Tickhill Music Society

The Waddington Military Wives Choir

The Military Wives Choirs Foundation is a network of 72 choirs around the world, reaching across the whole military community bringing over 2,000 women closer together through singing.

Waddington Military Choir was established in 2014 and creates a support network through the power of singing.

Thursday 2 November, 7.30pm

St. Mary’s Church

St. Mary’s Road, Tickhill, DN11 9LZ

Entry £15 on the door (or £75 for the whole series)

Children FREE but must be accompanied by an adult.

For more information please contact the Society:

07880 507070

[email protected]

Doncaster Choral Society

Concert for Remembrance Day

Conductor – Matt Beckingham

Olivia Rose Tringham (soprano), John Dunford (bass), Angelina Egerton (harp),

Rachel Fright (piano), Alan Horsey (organ)

Goodall: Eternal Light

Love Divine

Gorecki: Totus Tuus

Howard Goodall’s Eternal Life: A Requiem was commissioned in 2008, the 90 th anniversary of the end of World War One, possibly the last such commemoration with any surviving combatants, and though it was not deliberately conceived thus, it is powerfully appropriate that the central Dies Irae movement takes as its vision of hell the horror of armed conflict.

Alongside the Latin text phrases Goodall has juxtaposed John McCrae’s haunting war poem In Flanders fields. McCrae, a Canadian military doctor of great distinction, died on the Western Front in January 1918. This unorthodox and unusual interpretation of the Requiem, traditionally a prayer for the salvation of the departed soul, centres on those who are left behind to grieve.

His intention is to seek out the healing power of music, to create a sense of solace whilst acknowledging the unbearable loss and emptiness which comes with the death of someone close, in the hope that musical expression can provide space for reflection and maybe even some comfort. Howard describes Eternal Light as a Requiem for the living, using poetry readings and hymns alongside the more familiar text of the mass, to focus on interrupted lives. Uniquely in contemporary classical music, Goodall is able to compose music which is both original and accessible, and with Eternal Light, he has achieved a work with a powerful personal connection which has ensured its continued potency and popularity.

Love Divine was first performed at the Sheldonian Theatre by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Directed by Stephen Darlington, commissioned by the Choir Schools’ Association celebrating the year 2000.

The work is a setting of words by Charles Wesley. Goodall has always had an interest and admiration of the Wesley family; from the great hymn writer, Charles Wesley, to the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, and importantly for Goodall, the great church composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley.

Son of amateur musicians but discouraged from developing his musical gifts, composer Henryk Mikolaj Górecki persevered and became a leading figure of avant-garde music in post-Stalin Poland.

Serialism and its resulting dissonance characterized his early music, but he turned to a mor romantic sacred minimalism in the mid-1970s. Górecki composed Totus Tuus, Op. 60 in 1987 for the third visit of Pope John Paul II to his homeland. The text begins with a phrase the Pope himself coined after surviving an assassination attempt, believing that Mary herself had delivered him: Totus tuus sum, Maria (I am completely yours, Mary). The remainder is from a poem by Maria Boguslawska. The music with its exquisite harmonies is based on chants of the Polish Catholic Church and reflects Górecki’s deep love of his country and its musical traditions.

Górecki on music:

I think that music is one of the domains that people really need, and its importance only depends on whether one knows how to receive it. Every person needs to be prepared to know how to “use” music. Not only music—also literature, painting, sculpture, and film. . .

Tarkowski said that art is prayer. It is something that I also emphasize. But it is difficult to understand: one has to mature to this thought. It seems to many people that prayer means to “recite the Hail Mary”—but someone may recite Hail Mary as many times as one wants and it may not be prayer.

Saturday 11 November, 7.30pm

St. Jude’s Church, Hexthorpe, DN4 0BT

Entry £14 paid in advance, £16 on the door

Students £5, school pupils FREE

Please contact: Marion Emmerson 01302 360129

Or buy online: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/592783

All enquiries email: [email protected]

Sprotbrough Music Society

The Tim Kliphuis Trio

Tim Kliphuis (violin), Nigel Clark (guitar), Roy Percy (bass)

Renowned Dutch jazz/swing violinist Tim and his colleagues are touring the UK and Sprotbrough are part of this!

Tim, Nigel and Roy play a boundary-crossing mix of various musical genres. Tim’s classical roots are reflected in the choice of repertoire well known to the classical world. His love for French gypsy jazz maestro Stephane Grappelli ensure a heavy dose of w=swing improvisation. Nigel brings his backgroound in Celtic folk, but also contemporary guitar techniques into the mix, while Roy’s sound recalls the various rhythms that define New Orleans street music.

They describe their programme as ‘fresh from the hallowed grounds of Samois-sur-Seine, the birthplace of gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt we offer this programme of pieces by Django and his musical partner Stephane Grappelli (and stories about them) to bring a smile to all faces and get toes tapping.’ Their treatment of each piece is highly personal and might even be called ‘work in progress’. Given the improvisational character of their music every performance is a one-off event.

AN EVENING WITH A DIFFERENCE YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS!

Thursday 16 November, 7pm

St. Mary’s Church Hall, Sprotbrough, DN5 7RH

Tickets available on the door - £15

The Minster organ recital series

Doncaster is fortunate to have such a fine instrument in the ‘mighty Schultze organ’ and everyone is welcome to come along and enjoy these lunchtime recitals by gifted musicians.

A truly wonderful way to pass an hour in the beautiful setting of Doncaster Minster. This month the recitalists are:

Friday 24 November– Craig Cartwright

Doncaster Minster, DN1 1RD

1.10pm, free entry with retiring collection

What a wonderful opening event for the Tickhill Music Society 2023-24 season (5 October) when Matt Beckingham gave a spell binding musical performance. It was great to see such a good audience of familiar faces and lots of new ones too.

Matt performed a range of songs from the Classical, Musical theatre and jazz repertoire and included some of his own compositions, whilst accompanying himself on piano. He wove the pieces all together throughout the evening to tell a story of his own musical journey from music school and Birmingham Conservatoire, to work with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Choir.

He shared entertaining stories of performances, including at Buckingham Palace. It was a captivating performance and one that will remain in the memory for a long time. A thoroughly enjoyable event.

Welcome back to lunch hour music!

Doncaster has had its lunchtime concerts since 1966, but the series has been inactive since 2020 because of Covid and problems with the series’ venues. They were relocated to the Chequer Road Baptist Church on 4 October.

Even then there were problems with that first concert as two of the

three artistes went down with Covid so had to quickly change to a singer and piano concert.

The singer, Steven Goulden, singing for the first time for three years with Amy Butler (piano). Although he was understandibly a bit rusty, he gave a performance of popular British folk or popular songs arranged by Britten and Quilter a notably less well known piece was The Crocodile.

Amy Butler contributed some piano solos to vary the programme; Debussy’s Claire de Lune, Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, and Eric Coates’s By the Sleepy Lagoon, the Grieg in particular going with panache! This was a new beginning and to be welcomed as such.

The second of this season’s lunchtime concerts (11 October) was given at short notice by flautist Shirley Barningham and accompanist Carey Williams.

Flute solos included works by Debussy - the unnacompanied Syrinx, Faure’s Siciliene and Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits. Mr William’s solos on organ or piano included Variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (Ah, Vous Dirai-je, Maman) by JCF Bach, most peices were mid 18 th century so not by any means all that well known. However, the

concert was very enjoyable.

The third concert, 18 October, was a piano recital by Doncaster born, York domiciled pianist Matthew Palmer. A pleasantly varied concert, starting with a Scarlatti sonata, Mozart’s glorious Rondo, the three Nocturnes opus 9 by Chopin (interesting to hear the third of the set, not too often played and nowherre near as often as Opus 9, No.2, the longest work in the recital came last – Liszt’s Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude, based on a theme heard at the outset and developed broadly. Mr Palmer, who teaches at Bootham School in York, coped well with all this repertoire and gave pleasure to his audience.

On 25 October the recital was given by Nick Fletcher, guitar teacher and composer from Sheffield.

This programme included newer pieces by himself, four were connected with water A View of the Sea, The Turn of the Tide, Lake Kawaguchi and Dark Waters, mostly influenced by Japanese music.

Other of Nick’s pieces had South American roots (Ballerina, Brasilia) and to end with a wistful number entitled Lament for Absent Friends. Variety was afforded by two pieces early 19 th century

Italian guitarists two cheerful studies by Carcassi (opus 60 no.3 and no.21) and, perhaps the recital’s main work, the Introduction, Theme and Variations opus 102 by Giuliani and Italian born guitarist and composer who lived in Vienna and knew Beethoven. Another most enjoyable concert.