FCMG’s Senior Choir will be joining forces with the Ernest Read Symphony Orchestra on Sunday 24th March for a children’s “explorer” concert including Britten’s Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra and Patterson’s Little Red Riding Hood Song Book.
The Concert takes place at St Mary’s Church, Primrose Hill and starts at 5:30pm – tickets are available on the door.
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FCMG and FCS present a wide-ranging programme of British sacred and secular music of the last 120 years. In the centenary year of FCMG’s Founding President, Benjamin Britten, the programme includes five of his works, extending from Hymn to the Virgin and Te Deum in C, both published in 1934, to the Missa Brevis which he composed in 1959 for George Malcolm and Westminster Cathedral. We also include Finzi’s God Is Gone Up, another work from the 1950s, and I Was Glad, the setting of Psalm 122 which Parry composed for the coronation of Edward VII. The secular strand of the programme includes Britten’s three Two-part Songs, early settings of poems by Walter de la Mare, and Elgar’s The Snow, an early setting of a poem by his wife Alice, as well as two recent works – James MacMillan’s setting of Robert Burns’ The Gallant Weaver, commissioned by Paisley University and premièred in 1997, and Richard J Harvey’s setting of Walt Whitman’s On the Beach at Night, commissioned by FCS and premièred by them in 2011. In addition to settings of poems the concert includes two settings by Andrew Carter of traditional songs and Vaughan Williams’ Five English Folksongs.
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A performance at London Zoo of
THE SONG OF THE CARNIVORES
by Richard Sisson
An educational cantata to promote awareness of the five great carnivores of Africa – lion, cheetah, leopard, hyena and wild dog.
“Some of the most amazing and adorable voices you will ever hear” – Usain Bolt on FCMG’s Senior Choir
The piece was first presented in Bulawayo in May 2012 by the Zimbabwe Academy of Music with a cast of over 500 pupils. The project has been developed under the patronage of the Zoological Society of London. It was conceived as part of an initiative to offer musical opportunities to students whose curriculum does not generally allow for such studies.
This performance on 22nd November was a 12 minute reduction of the longer version and was a part is a fund-raising gala sponsored by the Seitz Foundation. The proceeds are to be divided between ZSL’s wildlife conservation plans for the carnivores of Africa (including a programme to enable the teaching of this cantata throughout the continent) and the Zimbabwe Academy of Music. The event also featured a fine art auction and the Guest of Honour was be Usain Bolt.
The Finchley Children’s Music Group were joined by 10 young drummers from the Luton Music Service and the work was narrated by Petroc Trelawney.
