22 Mar 2024
St Albans Bach Choir celebrates 100 years of music-making on Saturday with a special performance of J. S. Bach’s monumental St Matthew Passion.
The choir began life as the ‘Augmented Cathedral Choir’, founded to perform large-scale choral works by supplementing the Cathedral Choir with extra voices. Fittingly, Cathedral choristers will also be taking part in this concert.
Music director Andrew Lucas said: “One hundred years ago my predecessor at the Cathedral formed St Albans Bach Choir, and at their first performance they sang Bach’s St Matthew Passion. A century later it’s a great privilege for me to be able to conduct the same work. We have engaged a stellar line up of soloists to celebrate this milestone for the choir, though we now take quite a different approach regarding language (the original German) and the use of period instruments in the orchestra, while we also have the benefit of modern scholarship.”
The internationally acclaimed soloists are Ed Lyon (tenor) – Evangelist; Stephan Loges (bass) – Christ; Mary Bevan (soprano); Alexander Chance (counter tenor); Robert Murray (tenor) and Roderick Williams (bass), with orchestra Sinfonia Verdi.
Many leading musicians connected with the choir in the past have been invited to join the audience for what promises to be an unforgettable evening.
Doors open 6.30pm, concert begins at 7pm.
Book tickets online at: https://www.stalbanscathedral.org/Pages/Events/Category/events
