 Leslie Olive writes about our big Celebration Concert a week on Saturday - do come!
CORONATION GRANDEUR
Parry's fabulous coronation anthem "I Was Glad", with double choir, full symphony orchestra and organ, is perhaps the ultimate concert-opener. I have chosen it to bring blazing into life the first really big performance of the EAC's 40th Season, which is rich with big celebratory events.
Under two weeks away now, SATURDAY 30th NOVEMBER at 7.30 will see those magnificent opening notes ring through St Mary's Church Reigate where so very many EAC concerts have touched, moved and delighted so many people.
SINUOUS FAURE
Fauré's Requiem is one of the great favourites of the choral repertoire, and the EAC has an interpretation I am very proud of, but which has not been heard for some time. Do take this opportunity to refresh your memory of this remarkable work whose surface simplicity reveals much more light and shade when performed with the EAC's depth of care and attention.
A SOLO TO DELIGHT YOU
The famous Pie Jesu solo is sung on this occasion by a member of the Chorale. Alice Baker, who is 22,  passed her audition and joined us as a member of our soprano section in 2018. With our aspirations to the highest standards, we almost always use established professional soloists (like bass-baritone Christopher Foster, the other soloist in the Fauré Requiem), but the Pie Jesu is a special case. Its musical simplicity calls for a sound in which the developing technique has not yet over-weighted the natural youthful sound. I think Alice's performance will delight you. Alice says "I'm thrilled to have this wonderful opportunity. I have always wanted to sing this beautiful solo, and it's amazing to have the chance."
A SYMPHONY MUCH USED IN FILMS (including "Babe"!)
The main work after the interval is the spectacular Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns. If this is familiar to you, you will not want to miss it. If it is new to you, please don't miss it! It includes some of the most accessible and tuneful music ever-written, but with such subtlety and grandeur that it is "once heard, never forgotten".
The work is a full-scale symphony, featuring a very large orchestra including piano, and combines that large force with the varied sounds and colours of a magnificent pipe organ - just as we now have in St Mary's. In the slow movement, the organ provides a deliciously restrained and subtle accompaniment to very high strings (the kind of thing that only top professionals like ours can truly bring off, by the way!), but elsewhere you will experience the whole magnificent power of the quarter-of-a-million pounds rebuild of St Mary's three-manual organ.
THE ORGANIST OF DERBY CATHEDRAL
Our organist is my friend Alexander Binns, Director of Music at Derby Cathedral, with whom I had the huge pleasure of working only last weekend at Eye Church in Suffolk. At the age of 27, Alex already has a formidable career behind him. Do look him up at www.alexanderbinns.co.uk. On that website you will find his repertoire list. I defy you to count up the number of pieces on it!
In order to accommodate the large forces involved in this repertoire, and to enable the organist to see the conductor directly, the entire performing force will be located in the Chancel of St Mary's Church, east of the Chancel Screen, which is how EAC concerts were given in St Mary's for many years.
YET MORE GOOD THINGS!
With Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine and Duruflé's short setting of The Lord's Prayer (in French) also in the programme, this really is a concert not to be missed.
Tickets are of course on sale and selling well for this 30th November concert. If you don't have yours yet, please - don't miss this one! Indeed, this is the perfect opportunity to bring friends who might be new to the English Arts Chorale and Orchestra, or indeed new to classical music.
Tickets are available from www.englisharts.org
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KMG Independent Ltd. are pleased to support the English  Arts Chorale and the fantastic work they do. KMG provide bespoke investment management and financial planning services to both individual and corporate clients, offering a truly personal and holistic service. Based in Surrey, KMG have been offering fee-based, expert independent advice for over half a century.
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