Exmouth Choral Society Spring Concert

Concert to cover 100 years of choral music

The Exmouth Choral Society Spring Concert on Saturday 11 May will feature a beautiful piece of music that speaks to anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one, Howard Goodall's 'Eternal Light Requiem'. The evening will also include Benjamin Britten's 'Rejoice in the Lamb', Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Five Mystical Songs' and Eric Whitacre's 'Seal Lullaby'. Together these pieces will make this concert a memorable and uplifting experience.

Howard Goodall has an extraordinarily wide range of composing credits from the music for 'The Vicar of Dibley' to specially commissioned choral works. He explains that when he was asked to write 'The Eternal Light Requiem' he decided to move away from the traditional medieval way of looking at death. The result is a work that blends poems from across the last 500 years to shed new light on the requiem concepts of peace, everlasting light, grief, comfort and faith in an afterlife. In his words, the work is intended to "mark the passing of a precious life and to honour it with dignity compassion and beauty".

As we approach the eightieth anniversary of the start of the Second World War and in the wake of last year's centenary of the end of the First World War, Goodall's Requiem reminds us that it is not only the dead of these two world wars, but the living who were left to grieve for their lost loved ones. Howard Goodall's requiem seeks to answer the question of what, in the 21st Century is a requiem for, who is it for and what does it mean.

The concert will span 100 years of choral music: Vaughan Williams' 'Five Mystical Songs' was first performed in 1911. It builds through a variety of styles to a triumphant hymn of praise while Britten's 'Rejoice in the Lamb' was composed in 1943. It was based on a curious poem by Christopher Smart while Eric Whittaker's 'Seal Lullaby', composed in 2004, was to be part of the soundtrack of an animated film that was never made.

The concert will take place at Holy Trinity Church, Rolle Road, Exmouth at 7.30pm on Saturday 11 May 2019.
Tickets are available online from Ticketsource https://www.ticketsource.co.uk at £10 plus booking fee or £12 on the door on the night. Under 18's free. Tickets can also be bought from Cabin News, The Parade. Exmouth and The Card Shop Too, 4 High Street, Budleigh Salterton


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