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Saturday 26th October  2002, 7.30pm GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL Cheltenham Bach Choir Presents: Monteverdi Vespers With His Majesty's Sagbutts & Cornetts Conductor - Stephen  Jackson Tickets £9,  £12, £15 & £18.50 . Children - Half Price. NUS Card Holders  - £2 Concession. Wheelchair Users - Carer comes free. from Gloucester Tourist Information  Centre , 28 Southgate Street, Gloucester. 01452  421188. from 23rd September 2002

Monteverdi Vespers Translation

Monteverdi's Home Page

Vivat Regina! - Concert  Reviews

Stephen's comments

Thank you and bravo to everybody for an excellent  day's work on Saturday. I was particularly pleased by how well we coped with the 8-part music (and maybe all the Gibbons needed, as Cedric pointed out, was to be preceded by the National Anthem - that was my mistake!). This bodes well for Monteverdi, "Dixit" and ultimately, of course, the big one, the B Minor  Mass.

Extra special thanks are due to Peter and Alan who masterminded the blanket coverage of Cirencester (when the banner fell down that time) and the resulting fantastic audience. Also to Janet and Tim for their marvellous solos, Arthur for being our man on the inside, Margaret for  handling so calmly a librarian's nightmare, and all of you for keeping my four-year-old quiet as a mouse for 2 hours 20 minutes. If there's one biggest  achievement it was that. Be kind to Tim and have fun.

Stephen

Concert Review from the Gloucestershire  Echo

Choir Rejoices in England

Stephen Jackson devised an attractive programme of a dozen or so English anthems for this year's summer concert.

This gave Cheltenham Bach Choir the opportunity  to sing what amounted to a splendid pageant of English music which ranged from  Orlando Gibbons to Judith Bingham.

But there was a connecting theme. Most of the  music was associated with coronation services in Westminster Abbey and the  general tone of the concert was, not surprisingly, brilliant and ceremonial.

Gibbons' celebrated O Clap Your Hands Together and Handel's rather too-familiar Zadok the Priest got the proceedings off to a  crisp, energetic start, and Parry's I Was Glad (in its original commissioned  version) brought the concert to a resplendent conclusion.

 In between, there were performances of several  less familiar 20th century items. These were all sung in the manner we have become accustomed to and the overall effect was of clear, disciplined singing  tautly directed by the conductor and often superbly accompanied by organist Robin Baggs.

Alfred Lawrence