Welcome to the Mayfield Festival Choir Society website...

Congratulations to everyone for all the hard work that went into our last performance. You will see a full report from Graham on the concert. One thing I would like to highlight is how fortunate we are to work with such gifted musicians: we see the talent, energy and skill of Graham and Andrew on a weekly basis but when that is combined with the quality of ‘London Primavera’ and our soloists we really are very lucky. Just consider that the two sopranos had not sung together until the final rehearsal: clearly Mozart must have had a particular flattering view of the skill of his putative soloists where they are going from bottom A’s up 2 octaves plus to top B flat and top C in one bar; good job he didn’t require anything similar of the 2nd basses. The concert had some magical episodes: I shall remember for a long time the soprano solo with the wind trio in ‘Et Incarnatus’.

We always try to introduce friends who haven’t been before to our concerts. Our latest recruit told me “the amber lights were flashing - Sunday night, cold Church, amateur choir, but how wrong we were, we were absolutely stunned by the quality of the experience. We can’t wait for your next concert”.

To spread that message even further, if you know of any of your friends who might like to join us, here is a special offer to help get the economy moving again! Why don’t they come to see if they like the experience, the first couple of rehearsals would be free; if they like singing with us and would like to join they can have the first year’s membership for half price. I think we can offer a really stimulating experience. See who you can bring along.

David

Well done for last Sunday’s concert. The works were demanding and challenging and I’m sure quite a few of you wondered if we would ever arrive at the performance! Mozart didn’t really make many allowances in the choir parts for MFC and Vaughan Williams provided me with a few problems, here and there!

We were missing a few strong singers, particularly in the soprano line, and this made a difference and, of course, our stalwart tenors, already few in number, were afflicted by coughs and colds at the last moment. However, given all of this, it was no mean achievement to perform Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. But, we did so, and I thought that the choir, on the whole, performed very well indeed. The choral highlights for me were the Cum sancto fugue, those magnificent opening bars of the Sanctus and the splendid final Osanna.

From the point of view of the soloists, I thought we had a remarkable team – Mary Bevan & Natasha Day were both outstanding, not only singing their solos brilliantly (Mozart demands even more from the soloists than he does from the choir), but also matching beautifully in the duets, trios and quartets. Strange that neither was one of our original soloists – all sorts of ups and downs went on in terms of booking the soprano soloists – conducting the music is the easy bit! And, ‘yesterday England v S Africa at Twickers, today Mayfield’, in Natasha’s case! Alex, our excellent tenor soloist (he had been very helpful to me liaising between the possible soloists at the outset of arranging the concert) had little to sing but ‘did it rather well’, I thought, to quote WSG.

Aaron certainly won over many of the ladies in the audience (my straw poll took place at the reception afterwards!) and what he (at times) may, perhaps, have lacked in terms of understanding metaphysical poetry, he made up for with his beautiful baritone voice! It was good to have RVW sung by an RCM student and conducted by a member of RVW’s old colleges (Trinity College, Cambridge and RCM). I once (at the age of 22) sang the Five Mystical Songs to Ursula VW (in days of yore, before I knew my abilities better) and I’ve always loved them. The Old Hundredth - the title reminds me slightly of ‘Old Peculiar’, a bottle of which someone thoughtfully/appropriately?) bought me for my 50th birthday! - got everything off to a good start. RVW would certainly have approved of everyone being on their feet singing (many of the orchestra were singing too, which was a nice gesture on their part, I thought). The band was excellent as ever – this was the second time I’ve conducted them in the work, the other occasion being 2006 in St. John’s Smiths Square. What was nice for me was that one of the violinists (Amanda Britton) was a woman I’d taught for A-level and conducted 20 years ago when she was a student on the Hampshire Specialist Music Course in Winchester (based, interestingly, in the house where Dame Mary Warnock, grew up). Their performance of St Paul’s Suite seemed to work really well, as far as I could judge from the vestry! Good to have Holst’s music next to that of his old college friend.

O Clap Your Hands had its highs (literally and metaphorically) and lows (more metaphorically), and even the occasional hiatus. God may rule over the heathen, but I’m not sure that the conductor entirely ruled over MFC/organ & brass in this Biblical blockbuster…...still, these sorts of things happen – if we aren’t prepared to fail occasionally, we shouldn’t attempt to perform anything difficult, which would be a great pity.

Please excuse this rambling, ‘stream of consciousness’ missive. May I invite any of you who are free to attend my performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Southwark Cathedral at 7pm (NB) on Friday 5 December with Nonsuch Singers and Canzona (who will be playing for us in their orchestral guise, rather than their Monteverdian disguise last May). I am fortunate to have a team of excellent soloists, including Tom Hobbs tenor who was our 1st tenor in the Vespers and Rebecca Outram (soprano who has frequently sung with The Sixteen). Incidentally, Tom is a soloist on the new Dunedin Consort recording of Handel’s Acis & Galatea (picked out and highly recommended in last Sunday’s Sunday Times). Also, before I see you again (bring out the Noel Coward songbook?), Nonsuch Singers will be giving a Choral Classics programme of music by German & Austrian composers – Schütz, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Rheinberger & Reubke on Saturday 31 January at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square at 7.30pm. I apologise for the self-promotion, but my agent, Hilary Clinton, is busy elsewhere.

Penultimately, the concert dates for next year are Sunday 3 May (Handel & Bach with Canzona) and Sunday 1 November (programme to be finalised soon) – please disregard the erroneous info in the recent concert programme. Still, we haven’t lost, or published on the internet, the MFC mailing list yet – did you hear the R4 programme the other day when a panel member, jokingly, said ‘I must inform listeners that I am a member of the National Trust’! Next term’s music is ‘top drawer’ – if you don’t know Bach’s Magnificat and Handel’s Dixit Dominus, you’re in for a treat; if you do, for another chance to enjoy the glorious music contained within.

And, ultimately, thanks, everyone, for all your hard work this term, well done for last Sunday and I hope that you all have an excellent Christmas & New Year.

Graham

We had a fairly hairy time with this last concert, until the last week or so: ticket sales were well down, but by the Sunday, including receipts on the door we had made over £4,900 a truly excellent performance from John Richardson, now chief organiser for ticket sales, taking over from Len who has done such a marvellous job for so many years. Thank you, too, to all the choir members and others who made such efforts to sell!

So far we do not need to consider making any cuts for 2009, so long as sales for the two concerts continue to hold up we should be able to get through, but as with nearly every other sector of the economy we shall have to keep a tight eye on future commitments.

I do hope we will be able to rely on you for your continuing support next year. It has been enormously helpful being able to deal with the vast majority of subscriptions by standing order. It would be much appreciated if those few of you who are still paying by cheque, particularly those paying twice a year would consider opting for standing order. You can still make two payments in the year, each for £40 rather than writing two cheques for £42.50. I shall be delighted to send you a form to complete for your bank. To confirm: no planned increases to subscriptions for next year!

A note from the Treasurer would not be complete without a sincere vote of thanks to our gold and silver patrons who continue to make an important top up with their generous contributions. I do hope we will be able to rely on your continuing support too.

I hope you have enough voice left for all the carol services and other festivities - a very happy Christmas and New Year to you all!

Chris Rebbitt

Once again I want to give a big thank you to all the people who have transported and built the staging, moved chairs and the podium around and lots more tasks, such as standing in the cold to defend our parking space for unloading! This time the whole operation was made more complicated by the Church dedication service on Saturday morning, resulting in an extra trip to St Leonards to collect 95 chairs for the choir and orchestra just in time for our rehearsal. Also on Sunday we had to bring 65 audience chairs up from a shed at the far end of the Churchyard, through rain and mud.

Very many thanks to the Balfours and Harold for the transport, to Barry for all his work and use of his van on Sunday, and to David Whittall for so much help. Also many thanks to the choir members, who are now expert at stage building.

We are very grateful to Tony Bayliss, the Bursar at St Leonards, Mayfield, for the loan of the grand piano and the folding chairs for our choir and orchestra.

Neil Wade

A Choral Masterclass with Stephen Cleobury Handel's Dixit Dominus at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Brighton on Saturday 7th February 2009 at 10.00am.

Tickets: £20 to include music hire, tea, coffee, and buffet lunch obtainable from the Sussex Chorus ticket manager 01273 890598.

Best wishes to you all for Christmas and the New Year.