St George’s Church, 7.30pm

TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE. SEE BELOW

LITANIAE LAURETANAE IN D Mozart

STABAT MATER Haydn

Gravesham Choral will be joined by

Helen Lacey soprano

Richard Decker countertenor

Alexander Aldren tenor

Piran Legg baritone

together with an orchestra, conducted by Alan Vincent

Mozart’s Litaniae Lauretanae in D, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is also known as the Litany of Loreto, Italy after its first-known place of origin. Beautifully composed for four soloists, chorus and orchestra, its uplifting movements are: Kyrie, Sancta Maria, Salus Infirmorum, Regina Angelorum, concluding with a deeply moving Agnus Dei for solo soprano and choir.

Haydn’s Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Christian hymn, portraying the Virgin Mary’s suffering during her son’s crucifixion. Many composers have since set this inspirational sacred text. Haydn’s wonderful version dates from 1767, and is superbly scored similarly to the above.

TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED BY CLICKING HERE.

£15 for adults, £5 for under 18’s and full-time students. Tickets will also be available on the door for an additional £1.

PLEASE NOTE: A card machine will now be available on the door. Card payments are preferred, where possible.

ST GEORGE’S CHURCH, 8PM

TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE. SEE BELOW

Gravesham Choral Society will be performing their annual Christmas concert this evening. A wonderful way to celebrate the start of Christmas! We look forward to you joining us for a chance to sing in some old favourites and enjoy Christmas music, both old and new.

TICKETS are £12 for adults, £5 for under 18’s and full-time students. Please CLICK HERE for tickets and follow the booking link.

ST GEORGE’S CHURCH, 7.30pm

TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE BELOW

Gravesham Choral Society are delighted to perform for you this evening:

Songs my heart has taught me Chilcott

Birthday madrigals Rutter

Ode for the birthday of Queen Anne Handel

Come ye sons of art Purcell

We will be joined by:

Elen Lloyd Roberts soprano

Richard Decker countertenor

Nathan Mercieca countertenor

Jack Holton baritone

together with Roger Harris on piano, Rob Ferguson on double bass and an orchestra .

Bob Chilcot’s Songs my Heart has Taught Me sets texts by the brilliant young poet Delphine Chalmers. She writes “Throughout life, music has been my barometer; it has helped me to understand so many things and so many people, and I hold this deep in my heart." Hence the title. The four songs are entitled Unison, Harmony, Rhythm and Resolution.

 Brian Kay, conductor of the Cheltenham Bach Choir, commissioned John Rutter to compose Birthday Madrigals in celebration of George Shearing’s 75th birthday and gave the first performance with them in June 1995. Words by William Shakespeare, John Wilbye, Christopher Marlowe and Sir Philip Sidney are delightfully set in an attractive, light style. 

 Georg Handel’s Ode for the birthday on Queen Anne is written for choir and soloists. There are nine movements beginning with a glorious duet for solo soprano and trumpet deliciously echoing each other in one of Handel's most moving and inspired opening numbers. 

 Henry Purcell’s Come ye Sons of Art is an Ode for the 1694 birthday of Queen Mary. It is one of his best known works with the countertenor duet, Sound the trumpet one the most popular highlights.

Tickets are £15 in advance or £16 on the door . Under 18’s and students £5 in advance or £6 on the door. Tickets can be bought by clicking HERE.

ST gEORGE’S CHURCH, 7.30PM

Gravesham Choral Society are thrilled to be performing this evening, the immensely popular CARMINA BURANA written by German composer Carl Orff in the 1930s.

TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE, SEE BELOW.

The choir are joined by soloists

Soprano Laure Meloy

Baritone Simon Thorpe

together with Malcolm Riley on organ & piano and Roger Harris on piano, a large array of percussion instruments and Ragazzi (children’s choir) from St Botolph’s C of E Primary School.

Laure and Simon will also be performing:

Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen from Die Tote Stadt by Korngold 

Quando m’en vo’ from La Bohème by Puccini

Holländer and Senta duet from Act 2 of The Flying Dutchman by Wagner.

Carmina Burana

You may well be familiar with the opening song O Fortuna, which has been used in countless television adverts and programmes from the classic Old Spice advert in the 1970s to The X Factor, such is its popularity. Carmina Burana, in its entirety, is packed with vitality, anger and the lusty enjoyment of life! The work comprises 24 medieval songs and poems written in ‘old’ Latin, German and French which were discovered in a Bavarian monastery in 1803, although the work is very much secular in nature. Orff adopted primitive rhythms and simple repeated melodies to create a passionate and exciting work that manages to be simultaneously strident and tender, chaotic and controlled.

Tickets are now available:

£12 for adults (£13 on the door) , £5 for 15’s and under & full time students (£6 on the door). Please CLICK HERE for tickets.

a WARM INVITATION TO ‘TRY US OUT’!

Come and join us - for free - at a rehearsal to see what we are about. If you haven’t sung with a choir for a while and are feeling a little rusty, or you have recently moved into the area, OR you sang in a choir at school and are thinking, I’d love to do that again, why not come along? There is no commitment to join, although we would love to have you! This term we are working on the immensely popular Carmina Burana with its well-known, stirring opening passage O Fortuna. It is a secular work which celebrates the lusty enjoyment of life! The composer, Carl Orff, created something very exciting using primitive rhythms and simple repeated melodies. The choir will have had a week of grappling with this before you come, but we can assure you that doesn’t make us experts! But there will be a lot of vocal support if you feel a little nervous, especially as some of the choir will have done this work before. Reading music notation is the only requirement really, together with enthusiasm and a willingness to have a go! Scores will be provided on the night.

We are a friendly bunch! If you want to know more about us generally, navigate your way around this website and maybe read the FAQ’s. If you want to have a chat about this or simply let us know to look out for you, as you are planning to come, please go to the CONTACT US page and get in touch.

We meet in Northfleet School for Girls in Northfleet, Gravesend (more details at WHEN AND WHERE ) starting fairly promptly at 7.15pm (finishing at 9pm) so we suggest you arrive at 7pm to pick up music and find your seat.

Hope to see you there!

St. George’s Church, 7.30pm

TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE NOW. PLEASE SEE THE LINK BELOW.

This evening, Gravesham Choral Society and orchestra are delighted to present two of Mozart’s highly acclaimed works. We will be joined by soloists:

Soprano Emily Jennings

Soprano Helen Lacey

Tenor Alexander MacLaren

Bass Adam Jarman

Symphony No 41 “Jupiter”

Symphony No. 41 in C Major, often believed to be one of the finest classical symphonies, is the last of a set of three Mozart composed in rapid succession during the summer of 1788. Just three years later, he sadly died and it is not known if it was ever performed in his lifetime.

In four movements, it’s scored for one flute, and pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns and trumpets, with timpani and a full string section.

Great Mass in C Minor

The Great Mass, composed around 1783, is a glorious large-scale masterpiece. Writing to his father (who was not at all enamoured of Mozart’s union with Constanze Weber), Mozart referred to his earlier vow to write a mass. He planned to return to Salzburg to introduce Constanze to his family, but it seems he also wanted to showcase her musical talents. When the mass premiered in Salzburg, under Mozart’s direction, it is believed Constanze was one of the two soprano soloists.

No one really knows why it’s an unfinished setting. The Agnus Dei is missing, only two Credo movements survive, and the Sanctus and Benedictus are partly lost but were subsequently reconstructed by various editors. Nevertheless, scored for four soloists, double chorus and full orchestra, it is considered one of Mozart’s finest works.

It was much admired by scientist, pianist and accomplished violinist, Albert Einstein, who declared: “I get most joy in life out of music.”

Please CLICK HERE to buy tickets.

For two years we have had to forego the pleasure of our Christmas Carol Concert due to the wiles of Covid. It will be a real joy to finally perform this year in our festive, annual carol concert where you, the audience, will have many opportunities to join in with the choir. Enjoy singing some of your favourite carols and listening to a few new ones. The choir will be performing the premiere of Little Star of Bethlehem, a new carol written by Alan Vincent which was commissioned by one of our members to celebrate 25 years of singing with Gravesham Choral (now 27 years because of the pandemic!). Tickets for this concert are selling fast so don’t delay in getting yours. We cannot necessarily guarantee there will be places on the door.

With organist Malcolm Riley

Tickets for this concert are now on sale from The Little Box Office (see link below). Please note online purchasing of tickets will cease at 5pm on Weds 14 Dec (concert day) so we have a clear idea of audience numbers. Some tickets will be available on the door. If the concert is definitely sold out, we will say so here. Please click here to buy tickets.

Gravesham Choral Society will be performing our concert MUSIC FOR REMEMBRANCE this evening - a varied programme, spanning the centuries.

Behold how good, and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Psalm 133

Chichester Psalms Leonard Bernstein

Nidaros Jazz Mass Bob Chilcott

Requiem Gabriel Fauré

We are joined by soloists: soprano Emily Jennings, tenor Jack Holton, & treble Dominic Stone.        

Our accompanists are Malcolm Riley, organ, Roger Harris, piano, Hannah Runting, harp & Jonathan Vincent, percussion.

Our concert begins with Leonard Bernstein’s cantata Chichester Psalms, commissioned in 1965 by the then Dean of Chichester Cathedral, The Very Rev. Walter Hussey. The psalms are sung in Hebrew and arranged in three movements: the first an exhilarating setting of Psalm 108; the second is the well-known Psalm 23 featuring our treble soloist Dominic Stone; the final Psalm 133 is very pertinent to our current troubled times as it concludes with a plea for harmony at this time of remembrance; part of the text can be seen above.

The Psalms are followed by Bob Chilcott’s Nidaros Jazz Mass, music which reflects the importance of jazz in the composer’s life. Gravesham Choral Society were inspired by Bob Chilcott himself earlier in the year when he joined us for some singing workshops to introduce us specifically to this piece. The mass is a relatively new work as it was first performed in 2012 by the Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir in Trondheim Cathedral. We will be performing a mixed-voice version arranged specially for the Kyoto Echo Choir of Japan.

After an interval, we will perform Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, one of the best-known and best-loved choral works. A widely acknowledged masterpiece, it was completed in 1890. Serenity pervades to comfort the bereaved, and the blissful final movement, In paradisum, promises a radiant future.

TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE. Please click here to buy tickets.

£12 adults and £5 for full-time students

PLEASE NOTE there will be NO HEATING in the church on Saturday so we suggest wearing layers as it might be chilly!

Please bring a reusable cup for coffee/tea if you have one to reduce waste. Don’t forget your packed lunch!

ONLINE (AND ALL PRE-BOOKING) IS NOW CLOSED, but places are still available if you come along on Saturday.

Please see below for booking details

10am registration, 4pm final session (friends of singers welcome to join us), 4.30pm tea and cake

Venue: St George’s Church in Gravesend

Cost: £15 Guest Singers, £12 members of Gravesham Choral Society, £5 students (final session guests: free)

Bob Chilcott is a composer, conductor and singer who has enjoyed a lifelong association with choral music, first as a chorister and choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, and for 12 years as a member of the King’s Singers. He became a full-time composer in 1997 and has published many oft-performed works. Bob has conducted choirs in more than 30 countries worldwide and worked with thousands of amateur singers across the UK. We are very excited that he is coming to work with us!

The day will consist of four workshops during which we will tackle Chilcott’s Nidaros Jazz Mass and Songs My Heart Has Taught Me. These workshops are open to all singers. We warmly invite family and friends to the final informal session from 4-4.30pm to listen to what has been achieved thus far on the day (free of charge). The Nidaros Jazz Mass can be heard by visiting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJObaJ6cYiw

Scores will be available to hire/buy on the day. We request that singers bring their own packed lunch and drinks for the short breaks, but tea and coffee will be provided at lunchtime. We would love all singers and their guests for the final session to stay for free tea/coffee and cakes after the day to celebrate our achievements! This is sure to be a popular event so book early!

PRE-BOOKING IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Please just turn up on the day as there are still some spaces.

Two alternative booking methods are available: online/post. We politely request that you do not mix and match the two systems!

• To BOOK ONLINE you need to do TWO things (IT IS ESSENTIAL YOU COMPLETE THE ONLINE BOOKING FORM AFTER BUYING YOUR TICKET OR YOU WILL NOT BE BOOKED IN):

1. Please pay for your ticket via The Little Box Office. Please click HERE to pay and get your ticket.

2. Click HERE to complete and submit your online booking form. You should receive a timetable for the day within three days. A form will need to be completed for each singer taking part.

• To BOOK BY POST (cheque, paper form, stamped addressed envelope are required):

1. Download a PDF of the booking form HERE.

2. Post completed form with a cheque and a stamped addressed envelope (all details are on the form).

PARKING

Follow the map link to see where this event is taking place. If you are unfamiliar with Gravesend, please go to Car parks Overview (gravesham.gov.uk) for more information about parking.

TICKETS for this concert are NOW AVAILABLE. See below. Tickets will also be available on the door.

A concert of choral music by some of our all-time favourite English composers:

Blest Pair of Sirens, Jerusalem Hubert Parry

Linden Lea, Three Elizabethan part songs, Five mystical songs Ralph Vaughan Williams

Gloria John Rutter

Orpheus with his lute Alan Vincent

Songs before sleep Richard Rodney Bennett

- performed by our acclaimed baritone, Simon Thorpe                                

1. The mouse and the bumblebee

2. Wee Willie Winkie

3. Twinkle, twinkle, little star

4. Baby, baby naughty baby

5. There was an old woman under a hill

Baritone soloist: Simon Thorpe

Our accompanist this evening is virtuoso organist and pianist, Malcolm Riley

Our concert begins with Blest Pair of Sirens, a stirring setting of Milton’s ode to music, by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918). We invite you to join us in singing Parry’s Jerusalem in a rousing finale. 

Three Elizabethan part songs, Linden Lea, Five mystical songs were all written early in the career of Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958). Sweet day, the first of the delightful Elizabethan part songs, sets George Herbert’s poem. The willow song and O mistress mine are both taken from Shakespeare’s plays. A keen collector of folksongs, Linden Lea – A Dorset song is a well-known example of the composer’s works influenced by this genre. George Herbert’s poems: Easter, I got me flowers, Love bade me welcome, The call, Antiphon are the inspiration for the deeply moving Five mystical songs. The first four are sung by our baritone soloist, Simon Thorpe, whilst the last is for chorus.     

 Orpheus with his lute was composed by Alan Vincent (born 1943) during the first Covid lockdown and is dedicated to Gravesham Choral Society. Scored for chorus and piano, the text is from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.

The exhilarating Gloria, is one of the earliest, large-scale sacred works by John Rutter (born 1945), a composer well-known for his popular Christmas carol settings.

 Please click here for TICKETS. Available now.

£12 adults and £5 for full time students

A concert of celebratory music by Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn

TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE DOOR . THEY CAN ALSO BE BOUGHT BY FOLLOWING THE LINK BELOW.

Te Deum in C Haydn

Ode for St Cecilia’s Day Handel

Hymn of Praise Mendelssohn

With orchestra, and sopranos Emily Jennings and Hannah Hughes and tenor Stephen Brown.

The Te Deum is a magnificent and joyous work, brilliantly setting the early Christian Latin hymn of praise to the almighty. It was composed at the request of the Empress Marie Therese of Austria, and first performed on 8 September 1800 at Eisenstadt, probably during Horatio Nelson’s visit there.

Ode for St Cecilia’s Day is scored for soprano and tenor soloists, chorus and orchestra. One of its twelve short movements is entitled “What passion cannot music raise and quell”. In was in 1683 that London’s musicians first celebrated the feast day (22 November) of their patron Saint, St Cecilia. In 1739, by now well ensconced in London and alive to its musical traditions, Handel composed his Ode for St Cecilia’s Day with words by John Dryden.

The exhilarating cantata Hymn of Praise by Mendelssohn, was written in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing! We will be singing the cantata in English (rather than using the German Lutheran text), using words prepared by Alfred Novello in 1840 for the Birmingham Festival.

TICKETS can be booked by clicking HERE

£12 adults and £5 for full time students

Due to the rapidly escalating situation with the omicron variant, we have very sadly taken the decision to cancel next week’s Carol Concert. All ticketholders will be refunded for the tickets they have bought. Please be patient as this process will take a little time to sort. Gravesham Choral Society wishes all our supporters, friends and members a healthy and happy Christmas.

Organist Malcolm Riley

A return to our annual Christmas concert with the usual wide variety of seasonal songs, old and new. Lots of opportunities for audience singing! This year will see the first performance of a new carol entitled Little Star of Bethlehem, commissioned by one of our choir members to celebrate his 25 years of singing with Gravesham Choral Society and written by our very own Director of Music, Alan Vincent. It will be a pleasure to mark Christmas together with everyone once again.

A COLLECTION FOR TWO LOCAL CHARITIES will be made at the end of this concert: the Ellenor (hospice) and Slide Away, a charity that supports bereaved children. Money was raised at choir which will be donated to charity as this collection is no longer happening.

Please note: We have sometimes had two evening performances but only one is planned this year so don’t delay in getting your tickets. ALL audience members need a ticket for this concert (whether paid for or free) so we can manage numbers safely given the c.urrent circumstances. Tickets must be obtained in advance as none will be available on the door.

Tickets are £5 for adults and free (tickets still required) for 15’s and under, students and Friends of GCS. (Friends will now need to order tickets online as we no longer have paper tickets to send out).

Tickets are no longer available as this concert has been cancelled. Refunds will be made in due course.

From now on, tickets for all GCS concerts can only be bought online. Paper tickets will no longer be available. We have made this decision as it is easier not handling cash; to save money/paper on printed tickets; to bring us in line with the 21st century way of doing things! Ordering and paying for tickets via The Little Box Office is very straightforward.

The programme for this concert is as follows:

Beethoven Symphony No 1 op.21

Beethoven Mass in C op.86

Beethoven’s 1st Symphony of 1801 is a sheer delight throughout. Although influenced by the style of his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart, many imaginative characteristics break new ground and foreshadow his ever more radical divergence from tradition in subsequent works such as the 1807 Mass in C. Of this, his first Mass setting, Beethoven said: “I think I have treated the text in a manner rarely heard before.” Scored for four soloists, chorus and orchestra, it was written during his most prolific period of creativity. It is certainly unique compared with previous Mass settings such those by Haydn. Thrilling passages alternate with simpler, more emotional moments in this powerful masterpiece.

We would love to welcome you back, so this concert will be FREE. Please just turn up at the door.

If for any Covid-related reason, the concert needs to be cancelled, notification of this will be made here.

THIS CONCERT IS NOW CANCELLED BECAUSE OF THE ONGOING PANDEMIC.. SADLY, EVEN IF RESTRICTIONS ARE LIFTED AS HOPED, THE CHOIR WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MEET FOR SUFFICIENT REHEARSALS. WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE THIS CONCERT IN THE SUMMER OF 2022.

CONCERT STARTS AT: 7.30PM

Soloists: tbc

Organist: Malcolm Riley tbc

The concert programme will include:

Rutter Gloria

Parry Blest Pair of Sirens and Jerusalem

Vaughan Williams Towards the Unknown Region and Five Mystical Songs

Vincent Orpheus with his Lute, a piece composed especially for Gravesham Choral Society in 2020 during lockdown

Tickets will be available to purchase nearer the time.

THIS CONCERT IS NOW CANCELLED DUE TO THE ONGOING PANDEMIC

Mendelssohn Hymn of Praise

Mozart Mass in C Minor

Sopranos: Helen Lacey and Ellen Pearson

Tenor: Stephen Brown

Baritone: Adam Jarman

We warmly invite you to join us for an evening of magical music by both Mendelssohn and Mozart performed by choir, soloists and orchestra, Our programme includes the exhilarating cantata Hymn of Praise by Mendelssohn, written in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing! We will be singing the cantata in English (rather than using the German Lutheran text), using words prepared by Alfred Novello in 1840 for the Birmingham Festival. In addition, we will also perform Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, unfinished, but considered one of his greatest works written as it is in a dazzling range of styles.

Tickets £15 Full time students £5

Tickets can be purchased online via The Little Box Office nearer the time.

We will miss sharing carols with you this coming Christmas. Gravesham Choral Society would like to wish all our friends, families and supporters the joys of the festive season.

Our intention is to perform our Beethoven concert next November, in 2021. We hope to include Beethoven’s Mass in C (Op 86). The programme details will be outlined/confirmed nearer the time.

We will reschedule the Instant event for a future date. This may be Spring 2022, but we will obviously be guided by circumstances.

Concert starts at: 8:00 PM

Organist: Malcolm Riley

This will be the second of our annual Christmas concerts with an enjoyable and varied programme of well-known and less-familiar carols. Audiences are invited to sing some of the carols with us.

Tickets: £10. Full time students: £1

Concert starts at: 8:00 PM

Organist: Malcolm Riley

This will be the first of our annual Christmas concerts with an enjoyable and varied programme of well-known and less-familiar carols. Audiences are invited to sing some of the carols with us.

Tickets: £10. Full time students: £1

Concert starts at: 7:30 PM

Soprano: Eloise Irving

Baritone: Jack Holton

Inspired by his schoolboy experiences of singing with adult choirs, Rutter wrote this delightful Mass for the Children – packed with captivating melody, harmony and rhythm. Our second work, Mirror of Perfection, was inspired by Richard Blackford’s visit to Assisi. He was so moved to learn of St Francis’s simple life that he went on to write this powerful cantata of great lyrical beauty using the saint’s little-known poems.

Gravesham Choral are joined in this concert by Benesonantes (Cobham Hall School Chamber Choir), professional soloists and orchestra.

Benesonantes will also be performing:
RUTTER’S GOD BE IN MY HEAD and VICTOR JOHNSON’S HOPE IS THE BREATH OF MUSIC

Tickets: £12. Full time students: £5