In The Press

Sacred Choral Music featured as Scala Radio’s Album of the Week

We are thrilled that our CD Sacred Choral Music featuring the music of Clive Osgood has been  Scala Radio‘s Album of the Weekend. 

Scala Radio Logo

‘Scala Radio is a brand-new entertainment radio station that breaks the mould of classical music in the UK, fronted by presenters Simon Mayo, Angellica Bell, Mark Kermode, Chris Rogers and William Orbit. Playing familiar masters from Mozart and Holst to surprising new works from living composers like Karl Jenkins, Rebecca Dale and Thom Yorke, film scores and musicals, along with performances by bright young artists like Alexis Ffrench, Jess Gillam and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Scala Radio is an exciting discovery of classical music for modern life.‘

There are various ways to listen to Scala Radio and once you have signed in you can catch up on the programmes which featured tracks from the CD!

The CD has had 4 plays on Scala over the weekend, on Saturday in Angellica Bell  (7-10am) and Faye Treacy (6pm-8pm) and on Sunday in Jamie Crick (7-10am) and  Chris Rogers & Anthea Turner (10am-1pm). Although this weekend, Jamie is standing in for Chris and Anthea, and Anne Frankenstein is standing in for Jamie.

Purchase the music in physical or digital formats through its producers Convivium or on Amazon.

A sneak preview …

In less than 2 weeks, our first independent CD, Clive Osgood Sacred Choral Music, produced by Convivium Records, will be launched.  In the meantime, we thought you might like a sneak preview of one of the tracks Hymn to the Word.

 

The Wait is Nearly Over!

On Saturday 18 May 2019, under the directorship of Robert Lewis, Excelsis will debut its first independent CD featuring the works of local composer Clive Osgood. 

The producers of the CD are Convivium Records a youthful and innovative conpany committed to working with exceptional artists and composers to record and share their music. Their Managing Director Adrian Green is an accomplished choral singer himself and as such he brought real love and understanding to the project. Osgood’s music was recorded over 2 days at St John the Evangelist Church, Upper Norwood in South London. This splendid Gothic Revival Church is the home of the acclaimed London Mozart Players, who also feature on the CD. The CD is to be launched at the concert on 18th May 2019 at St Luke’s Church Grayshott, as part of Grayshott Concerts season. Tickets are available from www.grayshottconcerts.co.uk

On the day, Excelsis will be joined by the London Mozart Players, Soprano Soloist Rebecca Moon, Treble Soloist Cai Thomas, Baritone Soloist Timothy Emberson and the composer Clive Osgood.  In addition to the wonderful Osgood music, the choir, orchestra and soloists will also be performing the much loved Faure’s Requiem.

 

Travel Report

‘Trains and boats and planes’….and singing.

So what do members of Excelsis do when they are not singing with Excelsis?

Well the answer is, not surprisingly, that during the summer break, they travel.

Travels this summer included visits to Spain, a thrilling trip to the US to see the eclipse, and a massive tour of over 2000 miles around Europe taking in concerts, church services and European musical cultural and culinary highlights on the way. Others have been sailing, and one of our more flamboyant members flew himself to Le Touquet in his new toy!

And of course, as often as not, Excelsis members like to find somewhere to do some more singing.

So this summer amongst other things choir members have performed at a Festival in Cornwall (Mumford and Sons mashups), and at Hereford and Chester Cathedrals (glorious English Church Music); attended a Sing for Pleasure Summer School (Latin American Baroque music) and our beloved Music Director, Rob Lewis, led his Choirs from St Thomas on the Bourne on a tour to Antwerp, Brussels and Bruges.

Now, honed and relaxed, we are all looking forward to the new season and our concert on 18th November 2017. John Rutter’s thrilling Gloria, accompanied by a brass ensemble, will be the centerpiece of this celebration of our 10th Birthday. The concert will also include music by Vaughan Williams and our wonderful local composer Clive Osgood. The concert is at St Alban’s Church Hindhead, at 7.30. We would love to see you there!

 

 

Further news of the progress of our fund-raising campaign is coming soon.

Our Next Concert

We hope you can join us on 18th November 2017 at St Alban’s Church HIndhead. Featuring works by celebrated local composer Clive Osgood – whose work the Choir is proposing to record in 2018- and John Rutter’s thrilling setting of the Gloria accompanied by a brass octet. Full details of opportunities available to sponsor our recording project can be found here.

Post Tour Concert in Haslemere

Post Tour Concert

SS photo 10th June 2017We had a lovely appreciative audience for our post tour concert at St Christopher’s Church, Haslemere on Saturday 10th June and thoroughly enjoyed singing again the varied repertoire which we had sung in Ypres Cathedral, Bruges Cathedral and at the Menin Gate. Our audience enjoyed some Renaissance masterpieces, romantic 19th century gems, and some Rutter as well as the wonderful Paul Mealor setting of Locus Iste and Ola Gjeilo’s Ubi Caritas, which we had last sung under the arches of the Menin Gate. They audience was particularly delighted with the Clive Osgood’s wonderful pieces ‘Hymn to the Word’ and ‘The Peace of God’. Massive thanks to all our generous donors who contributed to the retiring collection which will go towards our project to record Clive’s choral music.

We are now busily preparing for our Autumn Concert in which we shall be singing a selection of Clive’s work along with John Rutter’s exciting setting of Gloria which is accompanied by a brass octet.