The Music Sales Charitable Trust

Bury Bach ChoirBury Bach Choir, now in its 88th season, comprises over 100 singers who perform the great choral works in wonderful surroundings using professional orchestras and soloists. Described by the East Anglian Daily Times as ‘a treasure for the town’, we are very fortunate to have an absolutely top-class music director and rehearsal accompanist. Our Co-Presidents, Graeme Danby and Valerie Reid, are both solo singers of international repute who frequently perform with us.

We were founded in 1932 and have a long and distinguished history. Over the years, our repertoire has included all the great composers of choral music, and we broaden our horizons every year by mixing the familiar with the unfamiliar, including 20th and 21st century music, to bring to our audiences a very high standard of choral music.

Philip Reed

Music Director Philip Reed came to the Bury Bach Choir in 2001 and is only the Choir’s third conductor since 1932. He has conducted choirs for over 35 years, alongside working at the Britten-Pears Library in Aldeburgh and at English National Opera. He is an acknowledged authority on the life and works of Benjamin Britten, appears regularly on Radio 3, and completed the sixth and final volume of Britten’s letters, of which he is editor-in-chief, for Britten’s centenary year, 2013.

How to join the ChoirBury Bach Choir offers competent singers the opportunity to rehearse and perform with an experienced Music Director. We rehearse most Wednesdays for 2 hours from 7.30pm at King Edward VI School.

For further details, visit www.burybachchoir.co.uk or contact Linda Cleveley on 01284 703348 or 07757 316553or email newmember@burybachchoir.co.uk

Bury St Edmunds Bach Society, registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation in England & Wales, no. 1181842

Friends’ SchemeFriends of the Bury Bach Choir provide vital financial support tothe choir and also enjoy special benefits. As a Friend or Benefactor you may:• Buy tickets before the date specified above for each concert, during the Friends’ Priority Booking Period. • Buy top-price tickets for £1 or £2 less than the full price. NBthisdiscountisavailableinadditiontoourearlybookingdiscountoffer.

For further details, visit www.burybachchoir.co.uk or emailpatron@burybachchoir.co.uk

Corporate PatronsBury Bach Choir acknowledges with thanks the generosity of itsmajor sponsor:The Music Sales Charitable Trustand the financial support of all its corporate patrons:David Roberton & CoGreene & GreeneKall Kwik PrintersRisby Hall and Risby Park Nursing HomesDM and M TildsleyBury St Edmunds Town CouncilAngel Hotel, Bury St Edmunds

ConcessionsWe offer half-price tickets to under-21s, booking by telephone or on the door. For everyone else we offer early booking discountswhere shown.

Last-minuteConcert tickets including concessions for under-21s can bebought on the door subject to availability, but we encourage youto buy in advance to obtain the best seats and avoid queuing. Ifbuying on the door, please arrive at the venue at least 20minutes before the concert start time.Seeourwebsiteforparkingatourconcertvenues.

www.burybachchoir.co.uk www.burybachchoir.co.uk

in association with

Concerts2019/20 Season

Keep in touch with future concertsTo stay in touch with future Bury Bach Choir concerts please email mailing@burybachchoir.co.uk giving us your name and address with ‘add me to the email list’ as the subject.

ChairTess Wright on 01284 388167 or email chair@burybachchoir.co.uk

Saturday 16 November 2019 at 7.30pmEnds 9.30pm approximately

The Apex, Charter Square, Bury St Edmunds

This evening we perform two contrasting choral works, one an acknowledged masterpiece, the other a contemporary classic. Brahms began work on his sublime German Requiem following the death in 1856 of his close friend and fellow composer, Schumann. A notoriously slow and self-critical worker, Brahms only completed it a decade later, after the death of his mother, when he added in tribute to her a movement featuring a soprano soloist. Following the example of the seventeenth-century composer Heinrich Schütz, Brahms chose as the texts for his German Requiem traditional words of comfort for the bereaved from the Lutheran Bible rather than using the Catholic Latin mass. The result is a work that acknowledges personal suffering and grief and attempts to offer consolation. Originally conceived for two soloists, choir and large orchestra, Brahms himself made a transcription of the orchestra’s role for piano, four hands. It is this intimate, chamber music-like account of Brahms’s great score that we perform this evening. Commissioned for the millennium and dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis, Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man is a powerful and compelling account of the descent into the horrors of war before offering hope for a peaceful future. The work has captured the popular imagination to become one of the most performed and poignant choral works of the moment. We perform the composer’s five-movement choral suite, which distils many of the piece’s most striking elements.

Brahms Ein deutsches RequiemKarl Jenkins Suite from The Armed Man

Helen Bailey soprano Bury Bach Choir Tom Asher baritone Philip Reed conductorJames Recknell pianoChristopher Moore piano

All seats reservedBooking opens 2 September 2019 Apex booking fee £1 per ticketEarly booking discount £1 off all tickets booked by 30 September 2019

Tickets £25, £20 and £15 (all seats reserved)from The Apex Box Office 01284 758000 or via www.burybachchoir.co.ukAll major credit/debit cards accepted

Saturday 14 December 2019 at 7.30pmEnds 9.15pm approximately

The Church of St Peter and St Paul, Lavenham

Get Christmas off to a joyful start by joining us for a feast of Christmas music in the beautiful parish church at Lavenham. This concert is always a highlight of the Christmas season!

We will be singing a variety of seasonal music, mixing the familiar with some less-known pieces, and including a series of Christmas readings.

We are delighted that this year our co-Presidents Graeme Danby and Valerie Reid – both distinguished opera singers with international careers – will again be performing with us. It’ll be a great evening!

Bring the family and join in with your favourite carols before enjoying mince pies and mulled wine.

Valerie Reid mezzo-soprano Bury Bach ChoirGraeme Danby bass Philip Reed conductorJames Recknell organ / pianoJill Burrows reader

All seats unreservedTicket price includes refreshments

Booking opens 2 September 2019Early booking discount £1 off all adult tickets booked by 31 October 2019

Tickets also available from 1 November 2019 (for cash only) fromLavenham Blue Vintage Tea Rooms, Market Place, Lavenham(open10.00-4.30dailyexceptThursdays:tel.01787248295)

Tickets £15 (all unreserved), under-21s half pricefrom The Apex Box Office 01284 758000 or via www.burybachchoir.co.ukAll major credit/debit cards accepted

Saturday 7 March 2020 at 7.30pmEnds 9.00pm approximately

St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds

In 1874, Giuseppe Verdi was Italy’s most celebrated opera composer at the height of his powers, feted throughout Europe, each new stage work eagerly awaited.

Inspired by the death of the great Italian writer Alessandro Manzoni, Verdi (who, famously, was sceptical of religious belief) reworked the ‘Libera me’ he had written for a proposed multi-author Requiem in honour of Rossini and expanded on it to complete a full setting of the Roman Catholic requiem mass.

Verdi’s much loved Messa da Requiem combines religious grandeur with operatic drama and passion in music that expresses a vast range of emotions – sorrow, consolation, fear, hope, penitence and joy – delivered by a quartet of soloists, and large chorus and orchestra. From the terror of the ‘Dies Irae’ with its threatening solo bass drum, to the sorrow of the ‘Lacrimosa’ and the desperation of the ‘Libera me’, Verdi encompasses the human experience in the face of mortality. His Requiem is a work of universal appeal, full of memorable melodies and thrilling choruses that will keep you riveted to your seat.

This evening’s line up of soloists brings together some truly remarkable talents. You are urged to book early for the best reserved seats, and to pre-book and arrive early for the best unreserved seats.

Sarah Fox sopranoValerie Reid mezzo-sopranoChristopher Turner tenorTom Asher bass

Booking opens 2 September 2019Early booking discount £1 off all tickets booked by 31 December 2019

Tickets £27 (reserved), £22 and £17 (unreserved)from The Apex Box Office 01284 758000 or via www.burybachchoir.co.ukAll major credit/debit cards accepted

Saturday 16 May 2020 at 7.00pmEnds 9.45pm approximately NB please note the earlier than usual start time

St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds

Come and enjoy the energy and variety of Handel’s best-known work, performed by the Bury Bach Choir in St Edmundsbury Cathedral as part of the Bury St Edmunds Festival 2020.

If you’ve not heard Messiah before, prepare to be enthralled by the most famous oratorio in the English language. This is musical storytelling of the very highest quality, full of uplifting tunes, with a remarkable variety of pace guaranteed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The work features the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and many other famous numbers.

With top-flight soloists and the superb Norwich Baroque, this promises to be a performance to remember. Don’t miss it!

Fae Evelyn soprano Norwich Baroque Valerie Reid mezzo-soprano Bury Bach ChoirAustin Gunn tenor Philip Reed conductorGraeme Danby bass

Booking opens 17 February 2020Early booking discount £1 off all tickets booked by 31 March 2020

Tickets £25 (reserved), £20 and £15 (unreserved)from The Apex Box Office 01284 758000 or via www.burybachchoir.co.ukAll major credit/debit cards accepted

A ChristmasCelebration

VerdiRequiem

Handel Messiah

Brahms Requiemand The Armed Man

Prometheus OrchestraBury Bach ChoirPhilip Reed conductor