Magnificence of Mozart's music

With a new year’s influx of further singers who relished the chance once more to be a part of the choir’s major performance of the year – enhanced by fine soloists and professional musicians - the audience certainly will find much to enjoy.

The most familiar work on this all-Mozart programme will be his popular work Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Described as being admired for its lively, joyful qualities and its memorable melodies, this iconic work is the latest of the pieces in this performance, being completed in Vienna in 1787.

Joyfully opening the proceedings will be Te Deum – composed by Mozart in 1769 when he was just 13 years old and moving into quieter and more contemplative moods in its short span.

The performance reaches its climax after the interval when the choir is joined by four soloists including locally acclaimed soprano Ansy Boothroyd, who was a choral scholar at Trinity College Cambridge before studying at the Royal College of Music, and Stephen Varcoe – one of Britain’s most distinguished classical bass-baritones – appearing internationally in opera and concert together presenting Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor.

This was written to celebrate the marriage to his wife Constanza, who sang the soprano solos in the first performance in 1783. Containing some of his most beautiful vocal writing, it is a poignant work filled with mature reflections on love and life and a deep though ambiguous spirituality.

The Musical Director is Michael Fields who joined the Phoenix Choir in 2011 and made his concert debut with them in January 2012, conducting Mozart’s Requiem.

The performance, at 7.30 on Saturday February 7 will be held at All Saints Church on Grange Road. There will be a retiring collection for the charity Mind. Tickets £15 for adults and £7 for under-18’s and students are available from Reid and Dean in Cornfield Road; the Tourist Office and on the door or via WeGotTickets.com