This is a popular but difficult work for choirs and orchestra alike requiring large forces and for singers a dexterity of vocal line and diction to master the Germanic Latin text of much of the work. A large audience at the Royal Northern College of Music gave...

Bury Choral Society’s final concert of the season, performed at St Lawrence’s Parish Church in Prestwich was an entitled A Victorian Entertainment, and it offered exactly what it said. The items all had their origin when Victoria was on the throne, and they were...

The Armed Man : A Mass for Peace (Karl Jenkins) – Stand Church Whitefield, 11th March 2017 The concert included the short ‘In Terra Pax’ (Finzi) during which the choir’s ability to sing quietly made its impact in this reflective piece. Choir member Chris Babbs is...

Receiving its first public performance in 1799, Haydn’s oratorio The Creation was immediately hailed as a masterpiece, a reputation it has never lost, and deservedly so. It offers melody, narrative and drama in abundance. In addition, the text is not without its...

Bury Choral Society Saturday 14th May 2016. All Saints Church, Whitefield Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in its entirety is almost 3 hours long, and was originally intended to be heard in two parts, before and after a Good Friday sermon. Minimal cuts were sympathetically...

Bury Choral Society 1st March 2016. Shakespeare and Cervantes What an outstanding performance at the United Reformed Church on Tuesday, 1st March – yet another evening with a difference. It was a stimulating occasion which fully displayed Bury Choral Society as a...

Bury Choral Society Concert 10th November 2015 A British Celebration was the title given to Bury Choral Society’s first concert of the season, held in Bury Parish Church, featuring music by Parry, Elgar and Leeming and dedicated to the memory of the late and lamented...

It is always a good feeling to be at a concert of Bury Choral Society. The concert in May was no exception. It commenced by students of the Royal Northern College of Music performing Old Hungarian Dances from the 17th century, for wind quintet, by Ferenc Farkas.  As...

On Tuesday, March 3rd, Bury Choral Society presented “Spring Celebration” a concert of mainly German and German-inspired items from Schubert, Brahms and Elgar. As their cheerful Spanish conductor Juan Ortuňo said, it would probably be spring in his homeland even if...

The evening of Armistice Day was marked by Bury Choral Society with a moving and thoughtful programme performed in Bury Parish Church. The first half was a medley of readings, poetry and music themed around the start and early days of the Great War. The two readers,...

On 17th May I was privileged to see and hear the Bury Choral Society concert at Stand Church. Having heard the Fauré and Duruflé requiems only days before at Manchester Cathedral, I must admit that I would have preferred a different programme, as I was going to hear...

Views on opera divide into polar opposites. Some consider it the highest musical art form, others that an opera is four good tunes set in two-and-a-half hours of tedium. If you take the latter view, Bury Choral Society’s “A Night at the Opera” at The Met, Bury on 15...