Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, St Edmunds Roundhay, Saturday 16th November 2024:

Leeds Philharmonic Chorus programme, conducted by David Hill MBE.

The evening opened with Eternal Light: A requiem by Howard Goodall CBE and was completed with Feel the Spirit by John Rutter CBE. Accompanied by Organ, Piano and Harp.

From our Mezzo soloist Merel Megali Cox: ‘The choir sounded absolutely amazing – such a beautiful sound you create all together! I think the whole programme worked very well (many audience members thought this too). I would appreciate if you can pass this message on to the LPC members & team, Joe and David Hill: Many thanks for the lovely concert and support on the day and in the past few weeks. I really enjoyed singing with LPC and want to thank them for introducing me to these Rutter pieces, because how fun and beautiful are they? ! I hope to do them again soon! Once again, I had such fun working with you all.’
Merel
From David Hill: “Please pass on my huge thanks and ‘bravo’ to everyone for their efforts. What a super venue!”

After a long search over the summer, we are delighted to be able to announce that Russell Medley is to be our new Accompanist following Alan Horsey’s retirement.

We auditioned 3 very capable candidates and were very impressed by his skills, background and lovely friendly manor.

Russell has an impressive CV, and is currently a Senior Vocal Coach/Repetiteur at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester,where he studied piano, double bass, composition and conducting. After graduating from the RNCM he studied for two years at post-graduate level, obtaining a Performer’s Diploma with distinction in accompaniment.

He has accompanied singers at recitals and master classes throughout the UK. He has performed in the Channel Islands, Finland, Sweden and Denmark and has taken part in recordings for the BBC, ITV and RTE. He is an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, which has taken him to Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Africa, Uganda, Holland, Italy, Austria and many parts of the UK.

As Musical Director of the Northern England Chorale he has conducted in Finland, Cyprus, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava and Delft. He is also Musical Director of the Lindow Singers and Sale Choral Society and has worked with many choral societies as conductor and organist. He was Assistant Chorus Master to the Halle Chorus for eight years.

As Chorus Master of the Chamber Choir and Opera Chorus at the RNCM, he has been involved in many major opera productions. As well as a thriving private teaching practice in singing and piano, he is tutor in piano at Moreton Hall School, Shropshire, and a tutor at the Centre for Young Musicians in The Hague.

Bradford Cathedral – 4^th March 2023

Premiere of Organ and Percussion Arrangement.

I should be grateful if you would pass on my thanks to the members of the Leeds Philharmonic Chorus for giving such a superb concert on the 4^th of March and for including my music in it! What an innovative programme – full of colour and imagination.

I admire the bravery of Joe Judge and the choir for including my Secular Requiem, a virtually unknown work. I was absolutely delighted with the performance and Joe Judge‘s interpretation of the piece. Choir, soloists and instrumentalists rose to the challenges in each of the three pieces and enthusiastically ‘sold’ them to the audience. Your choir is indeed fortunate to have such an inspiring leader as Joe.

I would also like to thank the members of the choir for being so friendly and welcoming during my stay – Leeds Philharmonic Chorus seem to be a very happy community who work together to produce high quality results.

Bradford is a long way from Truro, but I hope that we might collaborate again in the future.

Wishing you every success for future concerts.

Russell Pascoe, composer

Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, Bradford Cathedral, Saturday 4th March 2023:

Two of the three composers in this bold Leeds Philharmonic Chorus programme, conducted by Joseph Judge, are happily still with us.

The evening opened with music by Leonard Bernstein whose iconic legacy as conductor, composer and humanitarian lives on. Bernstein’s exuberant Chichester Psalms is his most overtly Jewish work. The psalms were sung in Hebrew and articulated with relish by ‘the Phil’ under the masterly baton of their chorus master Joseph Judge. Beautifully nuanced accompaniment was supplied by harpist Georgina Wells, percussionist Mark Concar and Neil Taylor on the organ of Bradford Cathedral. Cathedral Choir member Rhys Smouse was the plaintive boy treble in the ‘Song of David’.

Next came Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst, composed in 1991 – the year after Bernstein’s death. This work is scored for eight-part choir with piano and percussion accompaniment. The text was adapted from the Octavio Praz poem El cantaro roto (the Broken Water Jar) and inspired by the composer’s experience of a desert cloudburst. Roger Lazenby’s handbells team contribute to the sonic effects as the choir builds to a crescendo and imitates the sound of rain. The timpani produce the effect of a thunder storm which gradually fades away. Joseph Judge and the Phil surmounted the technical demands with seeming ease to deliver a fluid and vital performance.

Russell Pascoe’s Secular Requiem was premiered in its orchestral version at Truro Cathedral in March 2013. The Catholic Latin Requiem Mass is replaced by texts from Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Moore and Walt Whitman among others. The work is intended to be inclusive and accessible to those with or without a religious faith. Stephen Anderton’s humorous poem Cats and Cakes, sung by the mezzo soprano soloist, contains the plea: “Oh God! I should have said – they’re in the oven. The cakes, the cakes! And don’t forget to feed the cat”. The fifty-minute-long Secular Requiem is powerfully expressive and easy to relate to. It is an inspiring work which brings solace and hope.

Mezzo Julianne Coates and baritone Graham McCusker were the eloquent soloists with Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, conducted by Joseph Judge.

The composer himself basked in the applause at the end of this illuminating Bradford performance, the first to be given in his reduced orchestration for organ and percussion.

Geoffrey Mogridge
Ilkley Gazette, Wharfdale Observer

Leeds Cathedral, Saturday 26th November 2022:

John Rutter’s Requiem (1985) and Gabriel Fauré’s, composed almost a century earlier, could be said to form a concert pairing made in heaven.

Each work lasts around thirty-five minutes and is scored for soprano and baritone soloists, mixed chorus, organ and orchestra. Fauré and Rutter focus on the true meaning of the word ‘requiem’ or ‘rest’. Both works convey serene resignation and a sense of release. The music is predominantly soothing and reassuring. Neither composer sets the sometimes terrifying depiction – Verdi’s for example – of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath).

Rutter made his work accessible to smaller choral societies lacking the finance or venue for a full orchestra. He arranged an alternative off-the-peg version with chamber ensemble accompaniment. Fauré’s Requiem, on the other hand, exists in several liturgical and concert arrangements, devised by the composer himself and later scholars. These include John Rutter who published his own edition of the Fauré Requiem less than two years before composing his own.

Last Saturday’s performances of these two beautiful works were given by eighty members of the Leeds Philharmonic Chorus. They were accompanied on the organ of Leeds Cathedral, played by Thomas Leech, and a chamber ensemble comprising oboe, flute, violin, cello, glockenspiel, harp and timpani.

This downsized orchestration proved admirably suited to the space. Instrumental and vocal textures were wonderfully bathed in Leeds Cathedral’s resonant acoustic. David Hill, music director of Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, achieved consummate balance. The bloom of each instrument and the eighty choristers all came across as individual voices; a quality generally lacking in larger scale performances. Soprano Rachel Speirs and baritone David Cane were the expressive soloists.

Perhaps above all, the sincerity of these performers shone through their interpretations of two universally popular requiems. Both composers reached the heart of the listener with the humanity of their message and the richness of their choral writing.

Geoffrey Mogridge
Ilkley Gazette, Wharfdale Observer

Bradford Cathedral, Saturday 25 March 2022:

Conductor: Joe Judge
Soloists: Rachel Speirs & Graham McCusker
Piano: Chris Pulleyn and Philip Voldman
Harp: Georgina Wells
Timpani: Mark Concar

“Brahms German Requiem is indeed magnificent, and your outstanding performance was both intimate and majestic, tender and jubilant, just what is needed in these dark days that compel compassion, but also a firm confidence and hope for the people of Ukraine. Thank you for inviting me; I would otherwise have missed a most uplifting experience.”

Audience Feedback

Well it has been a rough couple of years for many and choirs have not been exempt. We just managed to run our lovely February 2020 concert with the Airedale Symphony Orchestra before the first big Covid lockdown but were sadly unable to complete the 2019/20 season. I don’t think any of us knew just how long it would be before ‘normal’ returned.

Many in the choir had to quickly get to grips with the dreaded ‘technology’ of smartphones, PCs, Skype, and later Zoom. We started off with four pre-recorded learning sessions with Joe (Joe Judge – chorus master) over Vimeo to just end up the season. Had a summer break and were delighted to be given the go to start live rehearsals again for the 2020/21 season in October 2020 – albeit in very reduced and spaced out numbers. Sadly, we only managed three sessions – just enough to give everyone who wanted, a live sing, then back to lockdown number two. Even worse, we were informed that our rehearsal venue of over 25 years would no longer be available to us post-Covid. This was a major blow as finding anywhere in the city centre that can accommodate over 130 people along with reasonable transport and parking options at a price we could afford was a big ask. Then Christmas was cancelled – well it felt like that too many. We grasped the technology again and were able to produce  a lovely virtual choir video rendition of Sally Beamish’s In the Stillness, ran a live streamed ‘Messiah’ over Facebook to a worldwide audience of over 3000, and also recorded a virtual ‘Hark the Herald’ carol for the Leeds City council Christmas post.

The rest of the 2020/21 season was held on zoom for rehearsals only. We laughed at the antics of Joe’s cats as they tried to disrupt things and wondered at the number of stripy tops he had. Another summer break followed, but the outlook was a bit more hopeful, and we searched for a new home. Amazingly after a lot of searching we were offered rehearsal facilities at the new Leeds City College Quarry Hill Campus. We thankfully grabbed this with both hands and the 2021/22 season was able to start in September with live rehearsals and the real possibility of live concerts again at last.

The Leeds International Concert Season (LICS) offered a first concert in October singing in Mahler 2 to mark the closing of the Town hall for several years refurbishment. It was an epic and glorious concert – see the reviews at Reviews – Leeds Philharmonic Chorus

Oh – and did I mention we have a new refreshed website as well. We have all been busy despite all the tribulations.

We have just run our own concert in St Anne’s with a broad selection of music and will be completing the year with the usual Lord Mayor’s Carols and also our own Christmas concert.

The choir thankfully did not lose anybody to Covid, but we still lost some loved and valuable members to other causes, and in many cases were not allowed to pay our respects due to restrictions at the time. We would like to make special mention of:

• Dame Ingrid Roscoe DCVO – Our president died June 2020
• Dr Rudi Leavor BEM – a member for over 50 years died July 2021

Leeds Town Hall, Sunday 31 October 2021:

Orchestra of Opera North
Conductor: Garry Walker
Soloists: Sophie Bevan & Claudia Huckle

The Cathedral-like ambience of Leeds Town Hall has, on numerous occasions since the 1950s, provided an unforgettable setting for Gustav Mahler’s colossal ‘Resurrection’ Symphony No 2 in C minor.

This is Mahler at his most benign – and his most terrifying. Dreamlike moments of spiritual tenderness alternate with passages of cataclysmic force. A tense opening movement contains some of Mahler’s most dramatic writing for the orchestral strings. His explosive envision of the apocalypse is arguably unmatched in the orchestral repertoire. The Austro-Bohemian composer’s vast instrumental canvas is produced by a huge string section; two harps, quadruple flutes, oboes, and bassoons. Ten each of horns and trumpets, two tam-tams, two sets of timpani, two bass drums and several snare drums. Plus three deep-untuned bells, glockenspiel, and the valedictory notes of the mighty organ prior to the Town Hall’s major refurbishment.

The Finale’s monumental setting of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s Resurrection Hymn, Die Auferstehung, specifies both a soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists – on this occasion the excellent Sophie Bevan and Claudia Huckle – plus a four-part chorus. Last Sunday’s contingent stacked up behind an enlarged Orchestra of Opera North amounted to over 200 voices drawn from the Opera North Chorus, Leeds Festival Chorus and Leeds Philharmonic Chorus.

The stupendous choral finale of the eighty-minute long symphony culminates in transcendent E flat major chords for full orchestra, organ, and chiming bells. No wonder the ‘Resurrection’ Symphony has achieved an almost cult status.

Opera North music director Garry Walker at the helm of the massed forces, revealed his absolute mastery of the architecture of this great work. The tension-laden attack of cellos and double basses in the epic opening movement had me on the edge of my seat. Mahler’s vision of the apocalypse erupted with blistering force; choirs, orchestra and organ were beautifully integrated in the exultant resurrection hymn. The tender moments too left an indelible impression. None more so than mezzo soloist Claudia Huckle, at her most consoling in the fourth movement’s O Röschen rot! – O Little Red Rose – from Mahler’s Das Knaben Wunderhorn.

Thunderous applause from a near-capacity audience greeted a performance destined to linger in the memory.

Wharfdale Observer
Reviewed by Geoffrey Mogridge, 3 November 2021

Leeds Town Hall, Sunday 31 October 2021:

Orchestra of Opera North
Conductor: Garry Walker
Soloists: Sophie Bevan & Claudia Huckle

The performance spaces in Leeds seem to be taking it in turns to close for refurbishment. Now it’s the turn of the Town Hall. For the last orchestral concert for two years an early evening Sunday performance provided an overwhelming finale.

Mahler’s Symphony No 2 (Resurrection) is a massive work in every way. It lasts for some 85 minutes, a complete concert in itself, but more than that it calls for massive forces: ten trumpets, for instance, six on stage, four off, eleven horns, again four of them offstage, two soloists and vocal forces such that the Chorus of Opera North, Leeds Festival Chorus and Leeds Philharmonic Chorus were all ranged up behind the mightily augmented orchestra. And the subject, from the ultimate existential question at the time of death through to the Day of Judgement and resurrection, could not be vaster.

The performance by the Orchestra of Opera North was by turn thrilling, terrifying and uplifting. Garry Walker, the Music Director of Opera North, seems to have inherited from his distinguished predecessor, Richard Farnes, the ability to marshal huge forces with minimum fuss, to express great emotional intensity while keeping a precise grasp of detail.

The Resurrection Symphony is bookended by two enormous movements, maybe 30 minutes each, which butt their heads against the problems of existence, separated by three varied movements of lesser intensity. The first movement is essentially a funeral march, alternating with more lyrical passages and punctuated by ever more terrifying climaxes. As so often in this symphony, it’s the brass and percussion that grab the attention, but it’s the menacing solemnity of the lower strings in the opening bars that sets the tone.

Rather than follow sonata form or a theme-and-variations pattern, Mahler seems to pursue what is almost a dramatic scenario, switching from one scene to another, contrasting one mood with another. Walker led the orchestra expertly through the serene Landler of the second movement, its fragmentary phrases precisely articulated, the swirling patterns of the Scherzo and the beguiling song, O Roschen rot, from Das Knaben Wunderhorn, sung by Claudia Huckle with appropriate purity of tone, supported by the reassuring warmth of a brass chorale, the brass on a brief respite from terrifying the life out of any listener.

And then violent brass and percussion outbursts outdo each other until we come to the drum roll of which Mahler said, “Just listen…and your hair will stand on end!” – this reviewer can vouch for the literal truth of that! After the Last Trump brass and percussion rumble away offstage while a flute picks up a nightingale’s song and eventually the two soloists (in this case, the soprano was the excellent Sophie Bevan), choirs and orchestra draw the listener to God.

Whether the listener actually accepts Mahler’s words on the divinity, in a performance of such committed intensity, the Resurrection Symphony is an inspiring experience.

The Reviews Hub
Reviewed by Ron Simpson, 31 October 2021

Leeds Town Hall, Saturday 29th February 2020:

The lavish orchestral and choral forces assembled for this enjoyable programme of Broadway musical theatre and opera were led with tremendous aplomb by John Anderson, the Airedale Symphony Orchestra’s permanent conductor since 1989.

Jerome Kern’s 1920s musical showboat ignited an electrifying evening. A medley of ‘hits’ contained within the Overture led into Ol’ Man River, pensively sung by baritone Neil Balfour and the Chorus. The Promise of Living from Aaron Copland’s opera The Tender Land was performed with blazing fervour by the chorus and ASO. Copeland, who was dubbed ‘The Dean of American composers’, unforgettably conducted a Suite from The Tender Land in this very hall back in October 1976.

Leeds Philharmonic Chorus Master Joseph Judge then directed his unaccompanied choir in a finely nuanced performance of Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei. Next came Marietta’s sublime aria from Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City). This was sung with a gorgeous sense of line by soprano Sarah Power.

Composer Randall Thompson was represented by Choose Something Like a Star, from his Suite of Seven Country Songs for chorus and orchestra. Gershwin’s meandering jazz infused rhapsody An American in Paris showcased the full orchestral panoply – including a battery of percussion, five saxophones, and a trio of car horns! Part One ended with Make Our Garden Grow, the gloriously uplifting orchestral and choral finale from Bernstein’s operetta Candide.

Robert Russell Bennett’s forty minute-long concert arrangement of Gerswin’s folk opera Porgy and Bess filled Leeds Town Hall with light and colour. Familiar numbers like Summertime – ravishingly sung by Sarah Power; I Got Plenty of Nothing – a soft-grained performance from Neil Balfour, and Bess You is My Woman Now, were all featured. The casually dressed Leeds Philharmonic Chorus injected life and swaying movement into the big choruses like Gone, Gone, Gone; Overflow, I Ain’t Got No Shame, and The Promise’ Lan’. The stupendous finale Lawd, I’m On My Way was encored. Astonishingly, this was a first Leeds performance of Porgy and Bess. Surely, a fully staged production from our own trailblazing Opera North is long overdue.

Geoffrey Mogridge
Ilkley Gazette, Wharfdale Observer