Harrow Choral Society Spring Concert

Spring Concert 2024

Harrow Choral Society has started rehearsals for its Spring Concert at Harrow School Speech Room on Saturday 23rd March when the choir will sing works by Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Vaughan Williams under the baton of Music Director, Sam Evans. The 90-strong choir will be joined by professional soloists and by the Byron Ensemble as well as by their regular accompanist Paul Ayres on organ and piano.

The combination of tuneful and inspiring music and the historic setting of Harrow School Speech Room, which has recently undergone a major refurbishment, promises a memorable evening for performers and audience alike.

The programme includes melodious and expressive works which convey a range of moods and emotions. The Hymn of Praise is the choral element of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, which the composer described as a ‘symphonic cantata’.  With its lively fugues and stately chorales the Hymn of Praise owes much to the influence of Bach whose music was such an inspiration for Mendelssohn.

Vaughan Williams’s sublime Five Mystical Songs are settings of religious poems by George Herbert, reflecting the composer’s lifelong fascination with the liturgy and music of the Anglican church. In contrast Beethoven’s intense and dramatic Elegiac Song commemorates the death of the philosopher and poet Johann Georg Jacobi. In addition to the choral items the Byron Ensemble will play Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, one of the composer’s earliest works and full of youthful vitality.

The concert starts at the earlier time of 5.30 pm. Tickets, which are £25 for adults and £2 for under-18s, may be obtained via the choir’s website at www.harrowchoral.org.uk, by email from [email protected] or by telephoning 07794 253463.