Cantorum’s “Valentine’s Sumptuous Supper” (a biennial event) took place on Sunday 22nd February 2009 at Liston Hall, Marlow. Sally Stafford conducted, and David Hazeldine was master of ceremonies for a superb sell-out three course supper concert attended by 110 guests. A very successful evening, involving five jazz choral pieces in close harmony and a great variety of light hearted and romantic individual items: solos, duets and a barbershop quartet.

Cantorum Choir's annual Carol Concert took place on Sunday 14th December 2008 at St John the Baptist Church, Cookham Dean. The two packed performances were conducted with great musicality and sensitivity by Sally Stafford. The concert included many of the choir’s favourite carols, and the items were introduced, along with samples of his inimitable readings, by David Hazeldine.

Vivaldi in Venice” took place on Saturday 4th October 2008 at All Saints’ Church, Marlow. The concert, conducted  by Ian Taylor, was received with great enthusiasm by a very good audience at Marlow’s beautiful riverside church. Special tribute must be paid once again to Alexandra and Charlotte Reid, whose performance of the Vivaldi A Minor Double Concerto was quite superb. It’s a real privilege to have such players appear with us, and we are extremely grateful to them. Here are just a few of the responses we received from our audience

“The ensemble was pretty faultless, I thought. I was particularly impressed by the Magnificat, which was taken with a lot of attack and had real life to it. The Reid sisters were electric – visual performance as well as music.”

“I was bowled over by the stunning performance of the double violin concerto.”

“I really enjoyed the concert - what an uplifting programme! The sound is wonderful. It was a real treat to be in the audience again.”

“Cantorum has really good voices - the solos from within the choir were excellent.”

Our thanks also go to the superb players of the Cantorum Orchestra – all in all, a very enjoyable evening.

Visitors from Japan

It was a very great pleasure to see once again Nobu Karasawa and Reiko Ohta, ambassadors from Mixed Chorus Fonte, with whom we shared such an enjoyable concert in June last year (listed on our Recent Concerts Page). They arrived for their lightning visit on Thursday, July 17th, and were picked up from the station by Penny and Bridget. Tea at Sally’s was followed by a walk along the river at Marlow. Then Penny did a magnificent job in co-ordinating operations for them, including preparing a superb supper for at least 10! It was lovely to catch up with our Japanese friends and watch a DVD of Fonte’s latest concert in Japan. Nobu remained overnight with Penny and Peter, and Reiko stayed with Bridget; and then, before our fellow choristers flew off on Friday morning for a choral convention in Sweden, Nobu and Bridget visited Malcolm and Marianne to deliver a present sent by their guests from last year. A few pictures shown here capture the highlights of the visit. Now we send the members of Fonte all our very best wishes and hope to see more of them as soon as possible.

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“Myths and Melodies: Music for a summer’s Evening” was Cantorum’s light and beautiful Summer Concert (14th June 2008), given at Holy Trinity Church, Cookham.

Ian Taylor’s carefully crafted programme began with four English madrigals and then included two later English part-songs, Diaphenia by Stanford and The Hills by Ireland. Acclaimed local flautist, Julia Bentley, played the virtuoso flute solo in Rutter’s Suite Antique for string quartet and harpsichord, and the concert’s first half concluded with George Shearing’s jazz settings: Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare.

Part Two was pure musical fun with members of the choir given a chance to show off their skills as soloists in Rutter’s The Reluctant Dragon – briefly preceded by My Bonnie Lass She Smelleth, a spoof madrigal setting by the fictitious P D Q Bach. The Reluctant Dragon tells of an elderly dragon whose hope of seeing out his retirement pursuing his love of poetry is shattered when his cave is discovered by the local villagers, and St. George is called for. As in all three of Rutter’s Musical Fables, this piece displays a remarkable diversity of stylistic influences, from wistful swing, to fifties rock, to Broadway musical. Amy Dennison, David Hazeldine and Malcolm Stork shone respectively as The Girl, St George and the Dragon.

We in the choir were very proud of this concert. And so we were truly gratified to find our opinion borne out by the very enthusiastic audience response – on a perfect summer’s evening. Attendance was high and subsequent comments glowing!

The St John Passion, J S Bach’s monumental and moving Passiontide drama, was our March concert this year, conducted by Sally Stafford. The performance was given by invitation at All Saints’ Church, Maidenhead, in support of the church’s Spire Restoration Fund. Cantorum’s intimate chamber style suited admirably the building’s warm acoustic, and very positive audience comments confirmed the pure sound quality achieved in an evening of fine musicality and powerful dramatic tension. This was a concert of which we are rightly very proud.