We’re excited to be performing at the John Armitage Memorial (JAM) concert series this summer, a fantastic initiative dedicated to yearly commissioning and performing of new music, often sympathetically programming new music with the more familiar. We have performed at JAM regularly since 2000, and this July we’ll be performing four wonderful concerts and bringing a nine schools education project to fruition
On 2nd July, at St. Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, we’ll be joined by BBC Singers and Daniel Cook (organ), under Nicholas Cleobury to perform MacMillan’s transfixing Cantos Sagrados and Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and the English Premiere of JAM’s 2013 commission The Farthest Shore, composed by royal wedding/chart-topping composer Paul Mealor. This spectacular new work is based upon a fireside Celtic legend. Cast upon an unforgiving shore, during a terrible storm, a stranger weaves an unfathomable, unforgettable spell over the inhabitants of a small village. This remarkable tale entwines reality, morality and faith in the quest for an ultimate personal truth.
On the 3rd July, 2200 children from five Romney Marsh and four Folkestone primary schools will be involved in A Sporting Chance; a piece for brass quintet and primary school children written by internationally-respected Bob Chilcott to enthuse children about music and sport. Each movement of the piece reflects a different musical style; e.g. sprinting trumpets, a football rap and an ice-skating trombone. This will be followed two days later, on the 5th, by a performance of a well-loved Onyx programme from Gabrieli to Gershwin in the exquisite St Mary’s Church, Rye.
On 6th July, we’ll be part of the repeat performance of 2nd July programme, bringing a rare treat to the St. Leonard’s Festival (Hythe), performed appropriately next to the sea.
Our final appearance will be a second performance of A Sporting Chance with the Folkestone schools. This will be on the 19th July at Holy Trinity Church. It’s not often you get to perform so much new music in a short space of time on such a large scale, and we feel very privileged to be involved in JAM once more. Mind you, we’ll have to be on top form to keep up with 2200 children though! Dave, our tubist, says to play the part of a weightlifter he has to be “very macho, but the kids keep us all going with their enthusiasm!”
You kind find tickets for all of these concerts through the JAM website