Excelsis Choir Tour to Belgium

Excelsis Choir, Grayshott Concerts Choir-in-Residence, visited Belgium over the May Bank Holiday weekend. The tour was planned as part of the Choir’s tenth anniversary celebrations. The Choir was delighted to be accompanied by Grayshott Concerts founders Vivien and Peter Harrison, as well as our Musical Director Robert Lewis’ parents and Concert manager Steve Georgii.

It was of course the Harrisons’ inspired vision to form a choir for the Grayshott Concert series. Their equally inspired invitation to Robert Lewis, then Music Director St Edmund’s School, Hindhead, to bring their vision to life in 2007 resulted in the choir’s now outstanding reputation.

Ten years on, with the recording of Sir Karl Jenkins’ The Healer and many excellent performances to their credit, the Choir secured three engagements in Belgium during their tour. They were to sing Sunday Mass in Ypres Cathedral, with its highly challenging nine second echo, and an informal concert at Bruges Cathedral. Their final engagement was to sing at the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate.

Rob Lewis had prepared the choir with some beautiful repertoire ranging from pieces by Gabrielli and Monteverdi to those by contemporary composers John Rutter, Paul Mealor and local composer Clive Osgood.

The presence of the Great War is felt in the very fabric of Ypres. Its surrounding fields are scattered with cemeteries large and small (the smallest spotted was four gravestones). Ypres was a vital strategic landmark along the Front Line, which had to be held by The Allies to block the German Army’s progress towards French coastal ports. It is hard to believe that this pleasant, quiet, albeit somewhat solemn, town witnessed some of the most desperate fighting of the first Autumn of World War 1. Whilst The Allies prevailed and held Ypres, it was at great cost. Many thousands of lives were lost and Ypres’ ancient buildings were razed to rubble. The town, including the cathedral, was subsequently recreated in the 1920s and 1930s to resemble its former self. The Menin Gate memorial was erected in 1927 and famously bears inscriptions of the names of 54,389 officers and men from United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces who fell in the Ypres Salient before 16th August 1917 with no known grave.

The emotional highlight of Excelsis’ tour was the engagement to sing at The Last Post Ceremony, held every night at 8.00pm under the vaulting arches of the Menin Gate. As the final note of the Last Post faded wreaths were laid to the memory of those who fell, whilst the Choir sang the beautiful and moving settings of Ubi Caritas by Gjeilo, and Locus Iste by Mealor.

Away from the solemnity of the Menin Gate, the tour party had plenty of time for sightseeing and sampling the local beers and chocolate.

The highlight of our visit to Bruges was a boat trip through its beautiful canals and its stunning ancient buildings. Surprise entertainment on board was provided by a Barbershop Quartet! Choir members Richard Arthur, Steve Harman, Tim Dutton and Jess Harman had been secretly practising and treated us to superb renditions of some well known Songs of Yale.

Excelsis will be performing the repertoire which they sang in Belgium in their Post –Tour Concert on Saturday 10th June at 6.00pm. The concert is free and drinks will be available. There will be a retiring collection towards realising our ambition to make a recording of choral music by renowned local composer Clive Osgood. Osgood’s newly composed opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream was given its first performance at St Christopher’s Church, Haslemere in May 2017. Brochures with information about this exciting project are available in the Church, or visit our website for full details of sponsorship opportunities www.excelsis-choir.co.uk

Excelsis will be touring in Belgium over the Whitsun Bank Holiday Weekend. We will be singing at the Sunday morning Mass at Ypres Cathedral where we will be staying. We will also perform a concert at St Salvator Cathedral in Bruges.  The high point of the tour will be providing the music as visiting choir for a service at the Menin Gate. 

 We shall be singing a selection of music from the Renaissance to the present day all of which you will be able to hear at our Post Tour concert at St Christopher’s Church Haslemere on 10 June 2017. 

On 4 July 2015, Excelsis chamber choir travelled to the Angel Studios in London to put the finishing touches on the live recording of Sir Karl Jenkins’ The Healer – a Cantata for St Luke. Under the baton of Director of Music Robert Lewis, with Sir Karl listening from the sound booth, Excelsis spent the day singing through the work, which was commissioned by Grayshott Concerts to celebrate its 10^th anniversary and first performed at St Luke’s church in the village. The recording will be released by Warner Classics on 25 September as part of Voices, an 8-CD box set of Sir Karl’s best-selling works.

To mark the release of the CD, Excelsis is joining forces with another acclaimed local group, The Waverley Ensemble, to perform a concert of classical music old and new at St Alban’s Church, Hindhead, on Saturday, 10 October, at 7.30 p.m. The concert, titled Dixit Dominus, will feature Handel’s choral masterpiece as well as local composer Clive Osgood’s contemporary version of the same title.

Excelsis Music Director Robert Lewis will conduct the chamber choir and orchestra, with a diverse programme that also includes Vivaldi’s Autumn from The Four Seasons, featuring local violin star Oliver Nelson, and Nulla in Mundo Pax performed by young vocalist Molly Beere.

“These are exciting times for Excelsis,” Lewis said. “On the heels of recording The Healer – a Cantata for St Luke with Sir Karl Jenkins, we are performing our first concert with The Waverley Ensemble on the day The Healer CD is released to the public.”

Tickets for Dixit Dominus are £15 (£8 for children under 16) and are available on the door or in advance from the Excelsis Ticket Hotline: 07805 515370; email: tickets@excelsis-choir.co.uk; web sites: www.excelsis-choir.co.uk or www.ishanibhoola.com. Doors open at 7 p.m.; St Alban’s Church, Tilford Road, Hindhead GU26 6RB.

Excelsis extends its heartfelt congratulations on the occasion of Karl Jenkins receiving a Knighthood from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.  As patron of Grayshott Concerts, Sir Karl has a close relationship with Excelsis and in October 2014 conducted the choir and the London Mozart Players in the world premiere of The Healer – a Cantata for St Luke.  The work was commissioned by Grayshott Concerts and composed by Sir Karl in honour of the organisation’s 10^th anniversary.

On 4 July 2015 Excelsis travelled to the Angel Studios in London to put the finishing touches on the live recording of Sir Karl Jenkins’ The Healer – a Cantata for St Luke. Under the baton of Director of Music Robert Lewis, with Sir Karl listening from the sound booth, Excelsis spent the day singing through the work, which was commissioned by Grayshott Concerts to celebrate its 10^th anniversary and first performed at St Luke’s church in the village.

Excelsis added to its broad list of choral repertoire by performing an evensong at St Thomas-on-the-Bourne, Farnham, on Sunday, 14 June 2015. Evensong services are traditionally held in the evening, with the majority of the service sung by a choir. Excelsis participated with works ranging from Josef Rheinberger’s beautiful Abendlied to Herbert Brewer’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis in D, which made the most of the church’s acoustics.

Excelsis was delighted to be part of the Wedding Celebrations of Liz and Donny  which took place on Saturday 25th April 2015 at St Mary’s Church, Bramshott.

The choir sang Os Justi, Ave Verum Corpus, Panis Angelicus and Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring as well as leading the congregation in some rousing hymns.

‘There aren’t really any superlatives to fully describe the wonderful singing you and the choir produced for Liz and Donny’s wedding at Bramshott church – not only did you lift the congregation to ever greater heights, but also you absolutely made the service exactly as Liz and I wanted it, beautiful music, wonderful atmosphere, beaming bride and groom and a silent and mesmerised audience. Wow!  I can’t thank you all enough for giving up your Saturday afternoon to make a truly memorable Wedding very special indeed.

Many thanks to you all.  I hope to hear you perform again before too long!’

Jen (Mother of the bride)

Excelsis will perform the Mozart Requiem and the Fauré Requiem on Saturday, 14 March, for the opening concert of Grayshott Concerts’ 2015 season, conducted by Rob Lewis. The chamber choir will be accompanied by the London Mozart Players and joined by familiar soloists Lucy Knight and Håkan Vramsmo, as well as Rebecca Afonwy-Jones and Paul Curievici.

Soprano Lucy Knight performed with Excelsis for the world premiere of Karl Jenkins’ The Healer – A Cantata for St Luke, in 2014. London-born Knight read Music at Cambridge University and trained at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and English National Opera. She is a 2013 International Opera Awards Foundation winner and recipient of Making Music’s Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists. She made her US concert debut as the soloist in the US premiere of The Healer at Carnegie Hall, New York.

Håkan Vramsmo also shared the stage with Excelsis when he sang the baritone solo in The Healer. He has appeared at major venues and festivals including the BBC Proms opening night and has recorded for BBC, Signum Records and Chandos Records. Vramsmo teaches singing at Citylit Institute in London and masterclasses at Koninklijk Conservatoire Brussel.

Making her first appearance with Excelsis and Grayshott Concerts is Welsh mezzo-soprano Rebecca Afonwy-Jones. She studied at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is a graduate of the Alexander Gibson Opera School at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Afonwy-Jones was a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist for 2010-11.

Tenor Paul Curievici studied at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and made his debut with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in performances of Gerald Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest at the Linbury Theatre. Curievici won the Scottish Opera’s John Scott Award and the Basil A. Turner Prize awarded by British Youth Opera.

Following the performance of “The Armed Man” with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Cor Caerdydd at St David’s hall Cardiff in November 2014, the BBC has announced that the concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Friday 9 January 2015 as part of the Afternoon on 3 programme.

Further information can be found at: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04y6736

Following the World premiere performance of The Healer, several members of Excelsis will be travelling to New York in January 2015 to perform in the US Premiere of the work. The Concert is part of the DCINY concert series to mark Martin Luther King Jr Day on Monday 19 January 2015 and will mark Excelsis’ debut performance at Carnegie Hall.

Karl Jenkins will be Composer-in-Residence for the weekend of rehearsals, with Dr Jonathan Griffith, DCINY Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, leading the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and Distinguished Concerts Singers International.  Lucy Knight (soprano), who sang at the World Premiere at St Luke’s Grayshott in October 2014, will also take to the stage with Mark Watson (Baritone).

Peter and Vivien Harrison, of Grayshott Concerts, will also be present at the US Premiere, which marks the first international performance of the work that they commissioned from Karl Jenkins to mark Grayshott Concerts’ 10^th Anniversary.

Further information is available at:  www.dciny.org