Fernhurst Choral Society revive pre-pandemic plans for summer concert

They are offering Handel’s Samson on Saturday, June 7 in St Paul's Church, Churchside, Chichester, PO19 6FT under musical director Tim Ravalde. Tickets £20, NUS £5, under 18 free via https://www.fernhurstchoralsociety.org.uk/dbpage.php?pg=booktickets

“We had started gently going through the piece at the start of 2020,” Tim recalls. “We had probably sung through about two-thirds of it by March 2020 and then everything including choirs like ours completely closed down for an interminable length of time. And for various reasons it has taken us five years to get around to performing it. It got bumped quite so comprehensively because we decided that our first one back after Covid should be Messiah. We wanted something that would be really attractive to audiences.

“Samson was written almost immediately after Messiah and they are very different, but it wouldn't have worked to have done one after the other so quickly. So it went on the back burner and simply stayed there for a long time.”

Tim is delighted to be doing it now, not least because of the challenges it brings: “It is so long that we have had to cut it savagely but also very sensitively so that it is a reasonable length for an evening, and working out how to cut it without ruining the story or the music is quite a challenge in itself. The choruses for the choir are also challenging. Some require great vocal dexterity. Some are quick and quite difficult but also some of the choruses are slow and full of sadness and emotion, and to pull those off effectively is also difficult. You have got the full range in the piece.

“The choruses are also interesting in that sometimes the choir are the Israelites and sometimes they are the Philistines and sometimes they're simply commenting on what is going on.”

Tim added: “This is my 14th season with Fernhurst, and we continue to get along very happily. They are a really friendly choir. And you kind of forget that the are choir based in a village with a population of something like 3,000. You look at what the choir does and you realise that they punch hugely above their weight. And as a result their achievements are incredible. What we have done has been really quite extraordinary. And I can't take the credit! And the reason I can't take the credit is that they were an extremely good choir to start with. The great pressure on me was not to ruin things!

“In terms of repertoire, we go as widely as we can while knowing our limits. We are particularly at home in the classical oratorial repertoire of Bach and Handel and Mozart and Haydn and Mendelssohn and Brahms. We are really happy and comfortable there but if we stopped at that, there simply would not be enough variety for us. We have done things like the Bernstein Chichester Pslams and we have sung folk songs and we have had an evening of American jazz classics.

“We are doing well for numbers. We will be fielding something in the 60s and that is right for us at the moment but new members are always welcome. Anyone can get in touch or even just turn up to rehearsals on Monday evenings in Fernhurst village hall.”

The latest concert is the last of the current season, so as Tim says it might be better to start in September but anyone wishing to become part of the choir is welcome to make contact at any time.