Join us as we host Portsmouth Choral Union’s summer concert, which will also involve Castle Primary School’s Choir singing the traditional prominent role for children’s voices in the following pieces. Rare for music in Portsmouth, the union will be performing Benjamin Britten’s Cantata ‘St Nicolas’. In addition to this, the union will be giving the first Portsmouth performance of Alec Roth’s ‘The Traveller’ with ‘The Age of Man’ as its theme.
Tickets for this concert are available from choir members, on the door, or online on Portsmouth Choral Union’s website.
Tenor soloist Nick Sharrat will portray Nicolas in ‘St Nicolas’ and The Poet in ‘The Traveller’, and Sophie Langdon will be the solo violinist. The concert will be accompanied by Southern Pro Musica and conducted by David Gostick.
Written for the centenary of Lancing College in 1948, ‘St Nicolas’ tells the life of the fourth-century Bishop of Myra. It is by turns dramatic, rhythmic and tuneful, and also gives the audience the opportunity to join in with two well known hymns, ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ and ‘God moves in a mysterious way.
Written in approachable contemporary idiom, ‘The Traveller’ echoes the rhythmic, tuneful and dramatic elements of Britten’s ‘St Nicolas’, and sets a text by Vikram Seth – using a mixture of his own short poems, and translations from a variety of Indian languages and traditions.
