Honouring the Loved and Lost in our lives

Members of Sussex Symphony Orchestra are joining forces with Cantores Memoriam, a choir of highly trained singers drawn from across Sussex, for an evening to remember those we have loved and lost.

Called simply Loved and Lost, it will be on Sunday, November 1 at 6pm at Holy Trinity Church, Cuckfield, RH17 5JZ when the programme will be Brahms – A German Requiem, Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op 45.

As part of the evening of music, remembrance and hope, names of those who have died will to be read aloud and candles lit in their memory. The evening will be conducted by Joe Paxton; free entry, everyone welcome, refreshments afterwards.

For Sophia Bartlette, from the Sussex Symphony Orchestra, it’s a happy return to the venue where she recently launched the Sussex Symphony Orchestra Chamber Orchestra: “Oh my goodness! It was so lovely. We had a standing ovation, and they made us do an encore. We have now got two more dates so we're busy planning the repertoire for those concerts. But really everybody enjoyed playing as part of a smaller group. Certainly for the wind players they felt a lot more exposed. There is a lot more concentration. It's a different type of repertoire and also you are playing a smaller venue with a different type of acoustic. It was just fantastic. Everybody wanted to do it again and it was the perfect venue with the most wonderful acoustic and an audience that are really involved in supporting music.”

This latest concert is not specifically a Sussex Symphony Orchestra Chamber Orchestra event: “It's a group of different musicians from across the orchestra and it's a remembrance concert. I think they do do a remembrance concert early November each year, but this is the first time that the Sussex Symphony Orchestra has been involved. It's great to have a combination of different musicians. The music world is a small world, and I imagine that people just got talking and that's why this is happening.”

Playing the Brahms is an appealing prospect: “It's really beautiful. I don't think I've played it that often. I've played it once or twice but quite a long time ago. But all requiems have those moments which are very reflective in mood, and it's a really beautiful piece especially at this time in November when we are remembering people we have lost.”