DELAYING the start of a choral concert in a church because of the sheer numbers arriving at the door is a rare occurrence, but it was the situation faced by the director of the Jersey Chamber Choir earlier this month.
And after the performance of Rachmaninov’s Vespers at St Luke’s Church, Michael Wynne was approached both by those who had enjoyed the unique experience of more than an hour’s music for unaccompanied voices, and by those who had missed it.
Mr Wynne needed little persuasion when Highlands College’s team leader for adult and community education Traci O’Dea asked him whether he would like to repeat the performance in the College’s Great Hall in December.
“It’s terrific music and the choir sang it exceptionally well, and it’s also a work which is not often performed. In fact, I don’t know if it has been performed here in Jersey before,” Mr Wynne said.
The Vespers – or the All-Night Vigil, as it is known in the Russian Orthodox Church – employs orthodox chants from the Znamenny tradition, Greece and, poignantly, from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, and constitutes one of Sergei Rachmaninov’s great achievements before he was forced to leave Russia for the United States.
On Thursday 7 December at 7pm, the choir will give a second performance of the work in the atmospheric setting at Highlands. Tickets, which cost £10 for adults and £5 for full-time students, with respective booking fees of 84p and 42p, are available from the choir’s website: choir.je.
Since its formation last year under Mr Wynne’s direction, the choir – which gathers for specific concert performances – has demonstrated its versatility in Venetian music by Vivaldi, Gabrieli and Monteverdi, and in a programme combining Buxtehude, Schutz and Biber.
On 16 March next year, it will tackle one of J S Bach’s great works, the St John Passion, for which it will be joined by an orchestra of locally based musicians.
