Boxgrove Choral Festival offers packed programme

Festival director Joseph Wicks said: “Of those seven events, there will be three sung services and four concerts, all performed in the stunning Boxgrove Priory.

“To kick things off on September 2, there will be a service of choral evensong featuring music by Gibbons, Howells, Stanford, Rachmaninov and Philip Moore. This is free to attend as are the other two services.”

Friday, September 3 starts with a lunchtime organ recital given by festival director Joseph on the Priory’s two-manual Hill organ. “Later on, in the evening, The Beaufort Singers will present a short Renaissance Late concert performing music from the Spanish renaissance by Lobo and Victoria. This is then followed by an atmospheric candlelit service of compline, featuring music by Owain Park, Neil Cox, Sheppard and Harris. Next up on Saturday, September 4, we couldn’t be more excited to be presenting the hugely successful lockdown project, Isolation Songbook to what will be its first ever live audience! Newly announced BBC New Generation Artist, the mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, together with baritone Michael Craddock and pianist Alexander Soares will perform a selection from the songbook, a set of pieces they commissioned over lockdown in 2020 dealing with various moods and emotions brought up by the pandemic.

“The festival then culminates with the big festival concert. Our programme focuses on themes of reflection, mourning, hope and joy, hopefully encapsulating some of the emotional whirlwind we’ve all been through during the last 18 months. From funeral music by Howells to ecstatic music for Easter by MacMillan, there is something for everyone in this concert.

“In ending with a live-streamed mass on the morning of Sunday, September 5, we are particularly delighted to welcome Christopher Robinson, our special guest conductor, to conduct the joint forces of The Beaufort Singers and Boxgrove Priory Choir in the final Te Deum by Vaughan Williams.”

Of course, it’s a festival which comes with added significance this year.

“To say that it has been a tough time for musicians these past 18 months would be a masterpiece of understatement.

“In the midst of maddening travel restrictions for touring professionals, social distancing guide-lines that have made the majority of both amateur and professional projects impossible and the lack of understanding from lawmakers as to the risks associated with singing/concert-going as compared to the risks of going to football matches, it’s been a quite appalling period, not just for singing as an industry, but for singing as a pastime.

“And so, it is with utter elation that we return to choral singing, not just in front of the camera lens, but to live audiences! In my short experience of being back giving concerts this year, it seems that the concert-going public have been starved of live music for far too long and are extremely keen to return – and return they do, in great number!

“Of course, there are some that will prefer to be cautious, but for them and others, we are presenting our festival online for the first time later in September. The world of concert streaming has really rocketed during the pandemic, and for a festival like ours, that’s really exciting because it gives us an opportunity to shine the light on Boxgrove Priory far more widely than just to those lucky folk who can make the local journey.

“So, this year’s Boxgrove Choral Festival really does have a rather unique context. It will be extraordinarily special to once again fill that glorious space with music over four days in early Sep-tember. I hope very much that it will be the ultimate catharsis for the torrid experience we’ve all been through, because - after all - music is uniquely able to express and articulate emotions of all kinds, from desperate mourning to great joy, from sombre reflection to hope for the future.”

Tickets on thebeaufortsingers.co.uk/boxgrove-choral-festival-2021/