Atherstone Choral Society

Atherstone Choral Society is honoured to join Birmingham Festival Choral Society (BFCS), Coventry Philharmonic Choir and Leamington Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of David Wynne, for this performance of The Dream Of Gerontius. This iconic choral piece is recognised as one of the giants of choral music ranking alongside works such as Handel’s Messiah and JS Bach’s B Minor Mass.

This performance is particularly significant for two reasons.  First, it marks the 125^th anniversary of the premiere which, took place in 1900, in Birmingham Town Hall, under the Musical Direction of the composer, Sir Edward Elgar.

Second, the choir who sang at that first performance on October 3^rd 1900, was none other than Birmingham Festival Choral Society!

In brief, The Dream of Gerontius, the poem by Cardinal, St John Henry Newman follows Gerontius, the main character. as he passes from this life to the next.   Elgar uses the text as the framework for this truly memorable work  which is scored for soloists, double choir and semi chorus, extended orchestra and organ.

At the end of the manuscript score, Elgar wrote this quotation from John Ruskin‘s Sesame and Lilies:

This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another: my life was as the vapour and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.

For tickets, please click on this link:

Tickets for Dream of Gerontius

We are delighted to be able to tell you about, and invite you to, our Summer Concert. This is, by tradition ,a lighter concert of popular well known music. This year we are performing a selection of well known folk songs from across the United Kingdom (you’ll be able to join in with some of these and have a good old sing!) Also in the programme, traditional American Music and John Rutter’s ever popular ‘Feel the Spirit’. We’re looking forward to seeing you on 5th July.

This year we are very excited to be performing an evening of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. There will be some very well known pieces of music like the great and much loved ‘Old Hundredth’ and ‘oh clap hour hands’ as well as among other pieces Vaughan Williams’ ‘5 Mystical Songs’, ‘Towards an unknown region’ and ‘Valiant for Truth’. We are very pleased to be able to feature the very impressive ‘3 preludes on Welsh hymn tunes’ which will be played by our guest organist Toby Barnard. We are also delighted to welcome our soloist Matthew Nuttall who sings with us for the first time but within his extensive performance portfolio sings regularly with Glyndebourne, the renowned opera house in east Sussex which hosts the world famous summer festival. Matt will be singing the solo parts in the ‘5 Mystical Songs’, ‘Songs of travel’ and ‘Silent Noon’. This promises to be a lovely evening and we look forward to seeing you at St ‘Nics’ on the 8th November.

As has become a very popular tradition we bring you another afternoon of Christmas music to listen to and join in with. Well known and much loved Christmas Carols to sing along to, exciting music for Brass band and lovely Christmas Choral pieces some of which you will know very well but we like to include one or two surprises as well. All within the lovely setting of St Nicolas Church which is such a beautiful and appropriate setting. Remember this concert is very popular so make sure you reserve your tickets early. We’d hate you to miss out on this concert which for the choir, band and we hope you the audience signals the start of Christmas.